The First Sparks
by Mx4
Summary: Intended first in a series. What if the Gods of the world took a more active hand in the world? What might it change about the Game of Thrones? (Or Jon Snow is a demi-god and world history is turned on its head as a result.)
1. Prologue

Rhaegar Targaryen had been smart as a boy. His tutors and later masters had told his mother more than once (and she him in turn) that he was one of the most remarkably intelligent children they had ever met. It had driven him to read through tome after tome when he was younger that most noble-born children his age wouldn't bother with. Not until they were well into their later life as a lord or a lady. It allowed him a vivid imagination which in turn helped him understand the various historical accounts that present epics and ballads arose from.

This in turn granted him a foundation to try creating songs and stories of his own that his people might enjoy in future. Others could mock him for his harp playing and his singing all they wanted, but to his mind it was often the songs and the stories people told of great men, great women or great events long after they were gone that lived on more so than any sort of any intentional legacy on their part.

But all of that had changed when he discovered the original purpose to the Targaryen family practice of in-breeding and the source of their family words.

It had been a positively ancient book. Whatever color the binding had possessed was long since been worn away to nothing from sheer age. On top of that, it was a thin volume. Barely larger than the palm of Rhaegar's hand. He had only managed to find it by accident, hidden as it was inside a larger collection of scrolls that documented the private history of the Targaryen family: main and branches.

But the first pages gave a clue as to what it was. It was written in a female hand and spoke of growing up on Dragonstone, of hearing stories about the destruction of Old Valyria via the Doom. There was sadness in that tone in the beginning of the book, questions of what to do about regaining a homeland that she herself had never seen. But near the middle, something had changed in the mind of the writer. It had started small, with her discovery that if she spoke her prayers and her thoughts to the morning dawn, she could often feel the breeze and the clouds and the light of the sunrise itself move as if it were trying to answer her.

And then it spoke more about her brother Aegon, the first of his name.

How she had planned by his side the conquest of this land they had seen every day upon their table but scarcely interacted with themselves. She wrote how it had all begun when she had been looking to the fires of her chamber one evening. Torn by indecision, she needed to decide where she should try to convince her brother to begin his war of unification. She spoke of being entranced by the dancing tongues of the fire and as she pondered to herself. In return, she'd been granted a vision of a figure shrouded in flame standing amidst the smoking ruins of Old Valyria. How the smoke had risen from the ground itself to try choking the figure, blasts of fire and gusts of angry wind blowing the raging battle between the land and the man this way and that. How even as the waves that crashed upon the shore inexplicably began to freeze where they landed to create hazardous spike of icy death, the ground itself was unaffected and still visibly smoked and crackled like a blazing inferno raged just beneath the surface.

She wrote of how when she came to, she had heard words not her own echoing within her mind.

**_When the world of what was becomes wreathed in a crown of ash, the divine fire shall blaze a way through the destruction. When the smoky death of what is lies heavy upon the air, the blood of the sun shall burn all the brighter in the midst of chaos. And when the light of what may be at last illuminates a new world, it shall be held in the hand of the Prince: he who is promised to the world of the mortals by the will of the eternals._**

She had taken the vision to heart. Drawing inspiration from it, she encouraged her brother to take his dragons, his army and his sisters to conquer seven kingdoms to remake as one. She had convinced Aegon that he must keep the Valyrian traditions alive through polygamy even if it meant alienating those they meant to rule. They would do this in the hopes that the fire of their spirit and the blood of their line would run true and at last create this prince her vision had spoken of. She was convinced this figure would one day return to Old Valyria and cleanse the land of the evil that had infested it since the time of the Doom.

Rhaegar had retired to his room soon after finishing Viscenya Targaryen's diary: when it ended by speaking of her son's birth and how she so hoped that she could see Valyria again within her lifetime. That left a bitter taste in his mouth, knowing her hope had been in vain.

Knowing that the Targaryen dynasty, they who had taken **Fire and Blood** as their family words, either did not know or worse did not care about the full meaning behind the phrase and what a responsibility that left on their shoulders.

As he reflected on this, Rheagar remembered that Viscenya had felt a connection to the sun and had only received her vision by staring into the heart of a fire. As he did, he realized that there were two things he could do to realize the prophecy of the Prince Who Was Promised. He could improve himself so that he would be able to provide the best possible instruction to his children when they grew old enough to be made aware of their responsibility to their once homeland and to the Prince himself. (Assuming one of them did not prove to be the fabled Prince of course.) And he could actively seek the same guidance that had spoken through the hearth to one of the first Targaryen queens.

The next day, he had approached his father's master-at-arms Ser Darry to learn how to be a warrior as well as a scholar.

Years later, he managed to become an accomplished swordsman in addition to a renowned poet and singer. On his own, he devoted more and more time to the study of fire worship. Both in the history of Westeros itself and in the lands to the east that had once housed Old Valyria.

He sought out places that had been touched by fires of unusually intense strength. The Dragon Pits. The Red Keep's Catacombs. Harrenhal. As well as the Field of Fire.

He had even chosen his wife Elia Martell based on her kind motherly nature rather than her beauty as others thought he should've with Cersei Lannister. But Rhaegar wanted to be sure that if he found the Prince in his lifetime, he would be unashamed to have his queen stand beside him when it came time to tell the Prince of his destiny.

She hadn't been entirely convinced when he had first declared his son Aegon the Promised Prince. And he had to admit later that she was likely right. That he had let himself get carried away since any sign that would lead to him actually finding let alone raising the foretold Prince that Viscenya's vision had spoken of was a remote and distant possibility at best.

That was, until he met Lyanna Stark at the Harrenhal Tournament. The day was sunny; the energy of the crowd had brought the festive atmosphere to a fever pitch. And in the midst of it all Rhaegar had become acquainted with and befriended (he liked to think so anyway) a wild Stark girl who had given him advice on how best to unseat his Royce opponent in the joust.

Without her advising him that Yohn Royce leaned slightly forward and to the left when he was charging his opponents, Rhaegar could not say with certainty he would've noticed the unconscious habit in the veteran warrior.

When she initially pointed this out to him, Rhaegar had promised that if her advice proved true that he would repay her for her help. And he was nothing if not a man of his word. He rode past his sickly but loving wife and awarded the crown of love and beauty to Lyanna Stark. As he gave her the flowers, he bowed his head toward her to let her know he had fulfilled his promise. He was sure not to smile least his gesture of respect be mistaken for something more.

But his effort was unsuccessful.

As he later tried once again to explain to Elia that he had simply promised to repay Lyanna Stark for her role in his victory, he saw a shadow move out of the corner of his eye on the darkening tournament grounds.

He moved to the tent flap to see what it had been, his intuition telling him that something was happening. Something that he needed to see.

Near the jousting grounds half hidden by the sunset, there was the girl Stark. And standing by her side was a man with hair the color of newly settled ash. He had never seen that kind of hair color on any who were not in some way related to his family.

He hurriedly excused himself from Elia, ignoring her calls to return. He needed to see who this person could be. Was it an as of yet unknown family member that had come to the tournament? Someone who intended to reveal themselves in the midst of his father's belief that the world hid all sorts who constantly conspired against him? (Including but by no means limited to himself, his mother, the highborn lords, the lowborn smallfolk, the gods, the faith, the Hand, the Master of Coin, the Master of Whispers and just about everyone but his Grand Maester.)

As he moved out onto the grounds without encountering anyone, he saw Lyanna Stark and the unknown man walking toward him. He slowed his pace so that he could seem to encounter them by chance.

But the unknown man gestured for him to join them without even looking in Rhaegar's direction.

Lyanna had quickly whirled toward him in surprise, obviously unaware of who it was the man was gesturing to. When she saw Rhaegar, she tensed further. She was visibly unsure how to address his presence here; a first for Rhaegar's limited interactions with her. As he came closer the ashen-haired stranger at last turned to face him.

"At last we meet you face to face Rhaegar Targaryen." He greeted with an enigmatic smile on his somewhat thin lips. Rhaegar was surprised to note how young and light-hearted his voice was. Young but crisp, like a lordling complimenting a junior officer among his sworn swords.

His eyes were such a dark brown they could easily be mistaken for coal black, but they seemed to have no trouble seeing in the semi-darkness or the shadows at all. His skin was bronze by torchlight and somewhat weathered from exposure to the elements. He had the build of a warrior, with calloused hands and a wiry strength in his every movement. Rhaegar seemed to vaguely recall seeing this man compete in the melee earlier in the tournament.

But none of that was what truly caught the crown prince's attention about this man.

The thing Rhaegar noticed most of all was the sense of just how large he felt. The sheer force of presence that he exuded was almost tangible in the air, as though he was standing not in the company of a human being but a force of nature. He wondered briefly how it was no one else had noticed this man before remembering that obviously Lyanna Stark had.

"What an occasion this is! To at last see the lone Targaryen who searched for us before our very eyes." He said. His toothy smile was at once welcoming and foreboding.

"Who are you?" Rhaegar asked guardedly, his left hand inching toward the dagger that hung at the small of his back. His gut told him that it wouldn't matter if this man really wanted to attack, but he preferred to be caught ready as opposed to unawares.

"Oh, we've had so many names in our time." The man answered easily. He clapped his right hand to Rheagar's shoulder, as though unafraid of the possible consequences to a lowborn for touching one higher in station then themselves.

"Lord. Father. Sun." He continued, as Lyanna appeared to be asking him with her eyes to stop talking to Rhaegar. She seemed afraid of what he might say. "But our favorite is perhaps the most personal we have been given in this world."

"And what name is that?" Rhaegar was unable to resist taking the bait.

Lyanna pulled him away from Rhaegar as he began to open his mouth to answer.

"What does it matter what his name is?" She demanded defensively.

"There is no need dear one." Came a deeper voice with a slight rasp from behind her. Rheagar almost couldn't believe his ears.

There was such a marked contrast between the two voices that he would've sworn they were separate people. But he had been looking right at this man as he spoke in the second, older and more serious voice. So he knew them to be one and the same logically. He began to think that perhaps this was actually a demon of some kind. He had read of such things in his stories when he had been young, but had never thought to actually encounter them.

"The king-who-would-be has sought an audience with us for some time now." He said, stepping around Lyanna, whose gaze sharpened and looked at Rhaegar with new eyes.

"You seek the Prince we once spoke of." He stated. "The one your song of fire and ice was written to honor."

Rhaegar forgot how to breathe for a moment. He hadn't revealed that song to anyone but Elia and his extremely young children. How did this absolute stranger know about it?

"Alas, our young flame still requires the first sparks to kindle him." The man said, holding his hands up in a gesture that Rhaegar took to mean fond resignation. A gesture that seemed to ask the rhetorical question: what can you do about it?

"What are you talking about? What prince?" Lyanna sharply asked the man, spinning to face him. He only grinned in the face of her confusion fueled irritation.

"Have we not given our name as R'hllor dear one?" He asked, deep voice tender for a moment as his right hand gripped her left.

"You. You're-" Rhaegar didn't know what exactly he thought to say here. To be in the presence of one such as this, a god descended the mortal realm…

"A great many things." R'hllor finished, turning to face the awestruck prince while holding his right hand out to Rhaegar to shake.

Rhaegar's hand found this man's, a barely noticeable tremble in his limbs.

"But most of all," The man who called himself a god continued. Lyanna leapt back in alarm as a fire sprang up where their hands joined, covering them to the wrist. It lasted only half a minute at most before it was gone as quickly as it had come.

"We are family." He finished, his grin becoming genuinely friendly as he pulled Rhaegar close for an unexpected hug.

The crown prince was caught completely off-guard. The royal family was not one for shows of open affection. And while he loved his wife dearly, she too was reserved in how she expressed her loving feelings for others. (Though that was perhaps just around his own family. He had seen the love she expressed toward her Martell brothers firsthand after all.)

"Come." R'hllor said, clapping his hands enthusiastically as the hug ended. "Walk with us descendent. We would speak to you away from prying eyes and ears."

Lyanna looked from one man to the other; seemingly unable to comprehend the exchange that had occurred between the deity and the Targaryen prince.

R'hllor glanced at the Stark in their midst with amusement twinkling in his eyes.

"Do you intend to continue imitating a statue dear one, or do you intend to walk with us?" He asked rhetorically as he chuckled a bit.

She shook her head quickly before drawing alongside him.

"So why didn't you tell me you could do…" She gestured vaguely to his hand.

"This?" The self-proclaimed R'hllor finished, igniting his hand again as he held it up for their inspection.

Rhaegar couldn't look away, watching as the fire seemed to span the spectrum of colors as the disguised deity's fingers shifted and moved.

"We prefer to draw the most fire we can from the smallest possible spark." R'hllor answered as he closed his right hand into a fist to snuff out the fire. He let his hand drop to his side again before continuing. "And if that meant allowing you to merely think us a mortal who speaks strangely, than it was an unimportant yet worthwhile thing to accept in the long run."

His smile grew slightly wider before he added onto his statement.

"That and it amused us greatly to see how you treated a…how did you put it again? Ah yes:" His voice shifted into an almost exact copy of Lyanna Stark's. "A strange little man with an ego that just begs to be punctured."

"Prick." Lyanna swatted his shoulder in annoyance.

"We much prefer Lord Prick." R'hllor answered, unfazed by her physical chastisement.

Lyanna laughed, nodding her agreement with his classification.

_'Any moment now, I half-expect Lord Varys will sashay in proclaiming himself King of the Whores._' Rhaegar thought numbly, his knowledge of the old myths and legends failing to help him comprehend this distinctly surreal situation.

As the private walk between the god, the prince and the northerner (and didn't **that** sound like the start of yet another one of Arthur Dayne's rambling jokes?) continued, Rhaegar was forced to revise his opinion on how surreal the situation was.

R'hllor wasn't there to observe or just to tell Rhaegar the Prince was not yet come. No, he was there to court Lyanna Stark. With a jolt the separate pieces clicked into place for the Targaryen scion. Rhaegar at last realized that R'hllor had chosen the tournament for a multitude of reasons.

He had used it to reveal his true nature to both himself and Lyanna. He had used it to observe the warriors said to be the greatest in the realm. He had used it to tell Rhaegar to keep faith in the promise he had made to his family all those years ago. And most importantly, he had used it to tell Rhaegar that the Prince was almost here. The descended god had even slyly introduced Rhaegar to the woman he intended to be the Prince's mother.

With that Rhaegar knew what he had to do. As the walk wound them back around to the Prince's tent, Rhaegar came close to them both as a bright smile lit up Lyanna's face in the waning light as she listened to a story about the lands across the eastern sea R'hllor was telling. As they were both turning to face him, Rhaegar took R'hllor's left hand and Lyanna Stark's right in-between his own palms.

He noted that the combined heat from their joined hands would've had most normal men's palms sweaty within the first minute or so of holding them.

"Lady Stark," He started, looking directly into her grey eyes. "Lord R'hllor has been kind to my family even as they have lost their view of his light. And he obviously considers you a friend. Any friend to Lord R'hllor is a friend of my family."

Rhaegar took a deep breath before swearing the oath he knew Lord R'hllor expected him to.

"I hereby solemnly swear upon the blood in my veins and the honor of my house that if there is ever anything I can do to assist you in anyway, you need only ask it and it shall be yours. And should you require a sword or a shield, you shall have it. By my life or death I so swear."

He finished, kneeling before them as he kissed the joined hands at the knuckles. First Lord R'hllor, then Lyanna.

"I…I thank you for your words Prince Rhaegar." She answered, caught off-guard by this sudden solemnity to his demeanor and his vow. She looked to R'hllor, a question in her grey eyes.

The god-cum-mortal simply smiled at them both.

"Let us hope it does not come to that young princeling." He said, nodding his head to indicate his acceptance of Rhaegar's oath.

As his blade clashed against Robert Baratheon's shield and the current of the trident river thundered around them, all of that seemed a lifetime ago. Almost like another man's memories of a time that he had only been barely involved in.

Now he was growing tired. His armor was well-wrought, but it was cumbersome. He had expected to face Eddard Stark. He had expected an opponent he could be reasonable with. But it had been so long since he had told anyone the entire truth of the things he knew that he wasn't sure he'd even know where to begin even if they were inclined to let him speak. He wondered for a moment if that was what men like Lord Varys felt like when they woke up every day.

"This is where you die Targaryan bastard!" His black-haired enemy screamed. The Warhammer once again crashed into his shield, this time damaging it beyond repair. Rhaegar threw it at him in an effort to gain some space between them. He was so very tired of the fighting and the strife.

He couldn't help but feel guilty about all of this. His oath to protect Lyanna however he could and his neglect of the situation with his father during his years of searching for signs of R'hllor and by extension the prince had combined to ignite the entire countryside in the fires of rebellion. He should've been in King's Landing more. He should've kept a closer eye on his father. He should've done more with the court's politics. He should've-

A crunching impact on his breastplate. He felt more than heard his chest cave in beneath his armor. He flew backwards, landing on the muddy bank as the rubies flew out of their fixed positions on the now broken dragon that reflected its owner's pitiful condition.

He felt his breaths grow short and his heartbeat slow even as his mind raced. He knew this meant he was already dead. His body just had to finish catching up.

The sun reflected off the reddened waters as Robert Baratheon strode toward him, savage gleam of triumph in his eyes. Rhaegar looked directly at the ball of fire in the sky. He so wanted to reach for it, as if his outstretched hand would be the cry to Lord R'hllor to come to his aid. To help him as he had promised to help the god and his lover in turn.

But he was becoming too weak to breathe let alone move his arm. As he began to fade, he caught one last glimpse of his surroundings. As the darkness encroached on his vision, he thought he saw a flash of ashen hair above him.

And then Rhaegar Targaryan knew no more.


	2. Jon I

Jon was sure the world meant to drive him insane.

Obviously it wasn't enough for him to be the bastard son of Eddard Stark. Obviously it wasn't enough for him to be 'the lone stain upon the honor of such a righteous man' as he constantly heard when no one thought he could hear them. Obviously it wasn't enough for him to be just as good as his half-brother Robb at all the matters that involved being the heir to Winterfell when it was made clear to him that it would never make any difference because he had made the grave mistake of being born from the wrong vagina.

Now in addition to that it had added over two years of hearing legions of whispering and cacophonies of voices whenever he was near open flames that had driven him into two separate panic attacks when entering the fully lit great hall.

And now things had reached their breaking point with Arya contracting a violent illness that had her wasting away. When she tried to eat she would inevitably vomit it back up. When she was asleep she would toss and turn in the midst of feverish nightmares, crying out in pain and fear. When she was awake it had initially been a fever and hallucinations. Now she could never tell the difference between reality and illusion. Now she was in such constant pain that she could barely speak; her voice having been worn away to almost nothing from screaming.

He had initially been forbidden from seeing her by the express orders of Lady Stark. That hadn't stung so bad initially since Maester Luwin had at first forbidden anyone except for the lord and lady of Winterfell from seeing her while she was being treated. Out of concern of whatever she had being contagious. But as he tried more and more remedies, the restriction had gradually being lifted for most everyone of the household. Jon had desperately hoped that might be a good sign, that it meant Maester Luwin was making progress on his little sister. But now…

Now the Maester had given up hope of Arya recovering. Jon could see it in his eyes, in the way he seemed to be more mechanical than anything in his motions to help her. As though there was no real belief left in him, only the certainty that he was delaying the inevitable.

And still Catelyn Stark forbade him from seeing her daughter.

Arya was almost quite literally his only friend in Winterfell despite the age difference between them. Sansa was too afraid of not appearing the proper young lady to her mother to ever be defiant enough to be outright kind to Jon let alone friendly. Robb, despite his jovial nature, had proven to Jon he always had the fact that Jon was a Snow in the back of his mind. Bran was too young to even understand that Arya was dying let alone to be a friend to Jon.

The less said about Lady Catelyn, the better.

The household servants of Winterfell may have pitied him if they got to know him, been vaguely annoyed by him if they were only aware of him through his escapades with Arya. But almost universally they looked down upon him for being a lord's bastard and seeming to put on airs beyond his actual station in life. The children of noble families such as Theon Greyjoy and the Umbers or Karstarks looked down upon him for being a noble bastard and being inherently less than his betters no matter how much he tried to disguise it.

But perhaps the most hurtful one was his father, the honorable lord Eddard Stark. He had brought Jon to Winterfell after the war, claimed him as his own, and raised him in his own household. But he had never once spoken of legitimizing Jon. Only intervened for Jon's behalf toward Catelyn if she grew outright vindictive toward him. Had always maintained a distance from Jon he did not toward his trueborn children. And refused to tell Jon anything of who he was and where he had come from. It apparently having never once occurred to him that perhaps a small child whose worst crime was to exist would've wanted to know if there had been someone, anyone who had actually been gladdened by his birth.

It was a hard thing for Jon to accept: that if it hadn't been for his honor or intervention by his mother (where or whoever she may be), the righteous Lord Eddard Stark would've never willingly brought Jon to Winterfell to be raised by his family. Jon loved his father despite all this because he was raising him in a higher station than many boys than him ever got to know. He just wished he could know just once that his father felt the same.

But Arya was not like any of them. She had accepted him as her brother, her sibling, her family from the day she had been born. It was one of the reasons he had always volunteered himself to look after her. Why he had done all he could to encourage her interests and ideas no matter what they were. He had sung songs of heroes for her despite his singing voice being better suited to imitating the dogs growling. He had told her the truth when others would lie because she was young, she was a girl, she was different. And he had never once denied her any acceptance and love he could give. Because she had never denied him.

But these last few days it had been harder and harder to stay inside the walls of Winterfell. Lately he would take roam the woods where all the voices he could hear was his own internal voice and the voices of the wild life that surrounded the keep. But this day, he had entered the sept. The only reason he could give himself as to why was because he heard a clear voice whispering to him. It sounded so much like his own, he could almost mistake it for an older version of himself, of his father.

As he entered, he took no time to admire the moonlight shining through the seven pointed star in the window. He moved past the wooden furniture inside to find the Alter of the Mother. There was a flickering candle burning inside of it.

_'Lady Catelyn was here recently.'_ He figured idly to himself.

"Not the elder red-headed woman. The younger one." The voice that had once been an idle whisper spoke up.

Jon yelped in alarm, whirling around to see if anyone had seen him.

"Who goes there?!" he called stridently, right hand instinctively gripping the dagger at his side.

The voice had the audacity to snicker at him. Jon kept whirling again to see where it could be coming from.

"By all means, keep twirling in place tiny dancer." The voice encouraged, continuing to snicker. "That should convince any who come to see you yelling at nothing that you're not insane."

Jon stopped moving, his mind racing as he slowly turned back to the flickering candle.

"Ah, figured it out have you?" the voice said, a definite note of pride in its voice as it spoke from the center of the small flame. "Very good. It usually takes longer than that for others."

Jon could barely breathed. The voice speaking to him through the flames, it wasn't simply sputtering and whispering at him like the others. It was intelligent. There was something in the fire that was speaking to him. A demon? A spirit? Perhaps a multitude of them? It would certainly explain the odd reverberation and echoing voices he heard just behind the primary speaking one.

"What are you?" Jon whispered fearfully, hand gripping his dagger in a white knuckled grip that was more for keeping himself from screaming than for protection at this point.

"One who would help you save what you love." It answered, its tone serious and businesslike where once it had been joking and playful.

"Wh-wha…" Jon sputtered, unsure of what he even wanted to say.

"The girl wastes away by the hour child." The voice told him, the previous voice seeming to shift into a different one altogether over the course of that single sentence. Now it sounded closer to what he imagined a wizened old seer would sound like. "They speak of giving her milk of the poppy to ease her passing even now. If you do not act soon, she will be gone and her spark will return to the fire."

Jon fell to his knees before the fire. "No." Was all that brokenly escaped his lips. He couldn't contemplate a world where Arya was gone. She who was the brightest spot of happiness he had at Winterfell.

"It need not be this way child." The voice urged, its conviction lending Jon the strength to look into the heart of the flame.

"What do you mean?" The bastard Stark asked. If he was going insane, he may as well gain something from it, he resolved. If embracing madness meant saving Arya then so be it. Jon knew she deserved more life than this: to be struck down by a wasting illness like this when she hadn't even begun to reach her potential. To show what she could do to the world at large.

"Are you willing to follow instructions? To do what is asked of you? Even if you do not understand how or why it shall change things?" The voice asked him, the fire seeming to grow somewhat brighter in Jon's grey eyes.

None but the spirit of the flame and Jon were present to hear him answer.

"Whatever I must do to save Arya, I will."

Three days later, he was ready.

_'Dead and Living Wood of the Old Gods, Alter and Idols of the New Gods. When the blinded eye of the sun opens in three night's time, place her upon the alter and use the symbols taken to stroke a new flame into power. When you have done this, We shall return to instruct you further.'_ Jon's memory supplied for the thirtieth time. He had gathered the deadwood of the Old Gods, never taking that which the Weirwood had not already discarded. After two nights, he was sure he had enough for the inner part of the Sept near the simple stone alter the Septa used for services.

The hardest part had been making sure the aforementioned woman was not inside when he needed to array the gathered materials around the central alter beneath the seven pointed star. But luck was with him this night as Septa Mordane left the house of worship to find her way into Winterfell. Jon didn't know why and so didn't know how long it would be until she attempted to return. He hurried through the silent halls as the full moon's light illuminated patches of the stone on the corridors as he hurried to his little sister.

As he had made his way to Arya's chamber, he couldn't help questioning whether this was the right thing to do. But every time he passed another torch that spoke whispers with every flicker, his resolve was renewed. He heard what he heard. And he would accept the consequences of his actions so long as there was even a small chance that he could help his favorite sibling.

Jon snuck into her room and saw her for the first time since she had taken ill. He knew she and Sansa normally shared a set of rooms. Looking at the emaciated, feverish form that occupied the bed, Jon honestly couldn't blame his father and step-mother for wanting to keep Sansa from having to watch Arya become this night after night with no reprieve.

As it was, Jon could barely stand to look at the young girl this way. She was normally so full of life, so curious and active that to see her like this…it seemed like sacrilege against all that Arya was. As he approached the bed, he instinctively smoothed her sweat-soaked and lank hair so that it wasn't in the way of her eyes. They cracked open, but they weren't looking at him. They appeared to be looking beyond Jon like they couldn't even see he was there.

"Mother? " She whispered through cracked lips, her grey eyes dull and barely able to stay open as she appeared ready to drift back to fitful sleep.

Jon picked her up in his arms and hurried down to the Sept, praying that the voice wasn't his fear and grief playing his wits for a fool. He was careful not to jostle her any more than necessary, even in his haste to attempt his insane mystical cure. As he had brought her into the Sept, he dropped a heavy bar across the door before placing her on the stone alter. The moonlight that shone through the universal symbol of the Seven cast one of the most colorful shadows he had ever seen on her slight body.

But Jon was not here to admire the house of worship.

He needed to hurry if this was going to have any chance at succeeding. He pushed a pew in front of the door, grunting and straining as he did. It was a heavy thing, carved from a solid piece of oak. But he had come too far to be interrupted now. The deadwood and carvings of the seven figures surrounding the alter made him morbidly think of funeral pyres. But if this worked, it would instead be a flame of rebirth.

He lit the fire, leaping back in surprise when it roared to life and quickly sought to engulf all that stood in its way whether flammable or not. The voice called to him from inside the fire.

"Hurry child! Come to her side! If she is to be saved, the healing cleanse must be directed before it consumes her entirely!"

Jon hurried into the fire, not heeding the clothes he wore that lit up when exposed to the burning element. He reached Arya's side, and instinctively placed his ear to her chest while trying to cover as much of her as he could with his arms.

He was shocked to find that Arya was sweating, but not from any of the heat. It appeared her body was struggling to eject something from itself, her muscles twitching and her voice a mere sighing wind even as it seemed she wished to be louder in expressing her displeasure. Jon desperately tried to think of what to do but couldn't, his panic at her rapidly deteriorating condition and instinctive fear of the fire making his thoughts cloudy and race too fast to keep track of them all.

"Do you trust us to help you?!" The voice called, sounding eerily like Eddard Stark.

Jon could only nod rapidly, eyes darting everywhere as he frantically tried to figure out what it was that he was expected to do. He felt the heat on his bare skin, saw the tongues of fire lick his body. And yet he felt nothing but his own rising panic.

Abruptly his body stilled and his heart-rate calmed. His own mouth opened without his permission to speak words not his own.

"Watch and see." His own voice instructed as his body gripped the sides of Arya's head. He could see there was some kind of heat being channeled through Arya's body. He peripherally noticed a crow had been ousted from its nest in the rafters but could not seem to escape the building inferno. As the fire spread further, it began climbing the supports and the walls whether wood or stone.

Jon felt he was justified in feeling afraid at this moment.

He opened his mouth, drawing a deep inhale of burning air as his splayed hands pressed more forcefully into Arya's temples. He could feel sweat beading at his brow from the effort of whatever the voice was doing, but he couldn't tell what precisely it was.

Without any warning, Arya's mouth wrenched open in time with the trapped bird letting out one last tremendous screech. There was silence from the bird but a growing scream from Arya as her body thrashed and moved beneath his leaning torso.

Jon was very frightened now. It was like a demon was being exorcised from his little sister. But what exactly was performing the exorcism?

Smoke erupted from her mouth as her body visibly grew more and more healthy. Jon felt the smoke enter his own mouth before tunneling forcefully into what felt like the center of his body or perhaps the deepest pits of his soul.

He cried out, hands holding his abdomen as it fluctuated wildly, the burning inside him making the growing fire outside feel as nothing. Arya was up and yelling something at him, trying to quickly make her way past the fires.

He shouted as a violent energy pulsed through his body, blowing the windows of the Sept out and blowing apart the wooden door he had previously barred shut. He whirled to Arya of his own accord, the presence now gone as the pain inside grew and grew in proportion.

"Go now!" He raggedly screamed, bile ejected from his mouth a moment later as he fell to his knees. He was sweating profusely as the last remnants of his clothing burned to nothing and the energy inside him conflicted what felt like his very being. Cracks were forming in the walls and the beams were already starting to groan under the previously supportable roof.

"GOOOOOO!" He shouted one last time as another pulse of energy forced its way through his body, knocking Arya back several feet toward the door even as she tried to get him to move. She tried to yell something back to him as she bolted for the open door.

Jon looked up just in time to see the support beam nearby him break and the stone begin to cascade downward. He saw Arya get through the doorway. The rubble crushed him, he could feel it weighing down every part of his naked body.

But he had to escape not the weight, but the unbearable burning. He dug upward and out trying desperately to escape the smoky fire inside him by perhaps reaching the cold chill of Winterfell's perpetually frosty air. Sooner than he expected, he managed to burst through the ruins of the Sept, stumbling blindly out and toward someone anyone who could help.

As he managed to make a faltering effort at walking somewhere away from the burned husk of a building, his strength abruptly deserted him and the burning with it. With neither pain nor relief left to offer him, his body chose to fall unconscious so that he might better recover.

As he briefly came to rest on his knees before falling face forward, he noticed Arya watching him unerringly, no sign of her sickness in any part of her demeanor or appearance.

Before he was dead to the world, Jon Snow had one last thought cross his mind.

_'I don't know what you did. But whoever you are…thank you.'_

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><p>Author's Note: Reviews are welcomed and encouraged.<p> 


	3. Mikhal I

It had been weeks since the Stark's second daughter had been taken ill. And still there was nothing to be done for boyish little Arya Underfoot.

Mikhal Luwin (better known to the children as Maester Luwin) knew that the Lady Catelyn had implored each of the seven gods for help, even praying before the shrine of the Stranger that it was not her daughter's time yet, that she was too young for the gods to require her life to end. Just as he also knew that Lord Eddard had spent more and more time in the Godswood seeking the guidance of the Old Gods who remained as silent as the Seven on the matter.

Mikhal could offer no comfort of faith to bolster their spirits. All he could do was what he had been doing: treat the spirited young girl with herbal concoctions and in the meantime send the ravens to consult with the citadel back in Oldtown.

But to his sorrow, it was all to no avail. The last few days he had been reduced to simply easing her pain where he could. As he made his way into her room, the first thing he noticed was the silence in the room. Normally the girl would twitch as though she longed to thrash and sigh as though she longed to moan. The pain and fever robbing her of even the strength to make the full extent of her suffering known.

As he drew to her bed, he saw she was gone, the covers drawn back as if she had awoken to sneak down to the kitchen with Jon Snow yet again.

He looked around frantically, trying to see if perhaps she had fallen off the bed and he merely hadn't seen her with no luck in his search.

He hurried out of her sickroom and made his way to the Lord and Lady's chambers, heedless of the clanking his extensive chain made or the jingling of the materials he stored in his robe sleeves for just about any possible occasion. Without any consideration for their state of decency, he banged on the wooden entrance to their bedroom. Impatient to begin the search, he decided to enter before they could respond.

"My lord, my lady! Young Arya is gone from her bed!" He exclaimed, opening the door without waiting for a response.

"What?!" They exclaimed in unison. He could see Lord Eddard's eyes tighten, another wrinkle being added to many that lined the face of a man old before his time. Lady Catelyn's fiery red hair was disheveled, her blue eyes red from tears she had doubtlessly been shedding in private before he came bearing more bad news.

"I came to check upon her this evening and she was gone." Maester Luwin told them, his fingers nervously gripping and releasing the edges of his robe's sleeves.

As Lord Stark opened his mouth to speak, one of his men ran into the balding Maester from behind. He had evidently been in such a hurry that he'd not noticed him standing there until it was almost too late.

"Fire!" the guard gasped, taking great gulps of air to offset his frantic run to the Lord of Winterfell's chambers. "Fire in the Sept m'lord!"

"Go, help the others put the flames out!" Ned exclaimed angrily, waving a hand to indicate his impatience with the new recruit still being there after having gotten the message to them.

The man kept catching his breath. "The men." He continued, trying to get more news to them. "They think your bastard's inside."

Eddard's face turned pale before he quickly moved to dress himself, Catelyn not a moment behind. Maester Luwin quickly moved toward the courtyard, the much younger guard and somewhat younger Lord and Lady of Winterfell overtaking him in their haste. The four had only made it to the area across the courtyard from the Sept when the heat washed over them like a rolling wave. The guards already present could barely stand approaching to throw water on the fire, some of them visibly overheating in their lightest leather and furred armor. Even so, Mikhal attempted to brave the discomfiting heat of the flames to draw closer. From inside he thought he could hear what sounded like a crow frantically cawing.

Before anyone could react, the flames flared still higher, the following shock of increased heat causing many of the surrounding crowd to lose their footing; Catelyn Stark herself among them.

And then they all heard a girl screaming. Mikhal's heart stopped beating for a moment. What was going on here? Jon was in the Sept, the Sept was burning and a young girl's voice was yelling inside the fire. Simple logic would say that the unspeakable was happening. It would say that he was killing the youngest female Stark.

Lady Catelyn had evidently had the same thought as he.

Heedless of the fire, she tried to rush toward the Sept. "Arya!" Her voice cried frantically, knowing her child's voice as only a loving parent could. "Arya!" She repeated before being restrained by a set of strong arms around her middle. She struggled against the arms, clawing and swiping at the person pulling her away from her daughter's voice even as Lord Stark appeared ready to throw up at the implications of Arya's young voice calling from inside the fire.

"Cat, you must stop!" He yelled, grip tightening despite her efforts.

"Your bastard is killing her Ned! Stop him! Stop him!" She heard herself cry desperately, her tears drying on her face from the heat. Mikhal didn't want to believe it. He had grown to love all the Stark children as a surrogate uncle, though he could never say as much to them without their getting into even more mischief than they already did. He would never have believed Jon capable of harming a hair on Arya's head, let alone condemn her to a particularly cruel and painful death that was entirely too similar to her grandfathers for anyone's comfort.

Before he could think more on this line of thought, something inside the Sept exploded with such force the doors blew open on their own; throwing splinters and sparks chaotically into the air.

As Mikhal's eyes readjusted to the open flames, he saw something that could not possibly be happening. He saw Arya Stark sprinting out of the Sept in her somewhat burned sleeping gown. She was yelling something at them all before zeroing in on her mother and father. She ran faster than the guards who attempted to catch her and get her to safety, faster than the people who surrounded them in the crowd, faster even than Luwin would have thought possible for Arya even before she had contracted her illness.

She was babbling something even as Lady Catelyn pulled her to her to hold on to her in gratitude and relief. Mikhal looked back toward the flames, calling to the nearby guards to keep working to put the fire out.

But his voice was still the third loudest behind the patriarch of the Starks and his youngest girl as Arya continued struggling and shouting. When Luwin finally listened to what she was saying, he was scared for Jon Snow's safety.

Lady Catelyn's face only held a strange combination of horror and concern as her eyes turned to look to the burning building of her southern faith while her daughter was screaming: "Help him help him someone help Jon help Jon please!" in multiple variations over and over while visibly struggling to get back to her bastard sibling.

Her beseeching grey eyes alighted on Lord Eddard, frantically pleading with him.

"Father please! Jon's inside, he needs us he needs us now! Help him please!" She babbled, trying to escape the safety of Lady Catelyn's arms for the danger of the flames. Mikhal's brain told him Jon Snow had more likely been consumed by now. Maester Luwin also knew it was possible that he had survived the blaze. But then why hadn't he emerged if that was the case?

There was a great groaning crack from inside the Sept. Before anyone could react, the roof and the walls began to cave in, the building falling inward on itself in what had seemed minutes but was truly only moments since Arya had left the building sized pyre.

"NOOOOOOOO! JON!" Arya shrieked, kicking her mother and successfully getting her to let go. Before Lady Catelyn could make a move to stop her, Lord Stark had gotten to the young girl and pulled her back even as she fought like a wild animal to try and reach the now surely dead baseborn boy.

Before the gathered crowd's disbelieving eyes, the entire Sept finished collapsing into a burning pile of rubble. One last anguished howl arose from the building before the debris appeared to snuff out the last of the open flames. Then all was silent but for young Arya's sobbing. Mikhal was simply too shocked by all that happened in these rapid moments to take it all in, despite having felt empathetic to Jon Snow and his life's circumstances.

As some guards stiffly began moving toward the remains of the Sept, there was a shifting in the stone before a figure emerged from the rubble, smog erupting from underneath the opening in the cooling debris to obscure them. The soldiers backed off in alarm, some instinctively leveling their weapons at it as it shuffled out of the broken stone and suffocating smoke like a child first learning to walk.

It determinedly made its way toward them, its destination unclear. Arya had ceased screaming and had an unwavering stare fixed upon the figure, her eyes looking as though all her hope in the world rested upon it. And when the figure's identity was revealed in open air, there were was only shocked silence to greet it.

It was Jon Snow. His clothing was entirely gone, his pale skin soot stained and visibly smoking. But in the midst of it all, he impossibly appeared to be stronger, more vital than he had been.

As he came into eyesight of Arya, his own grey eyes lit up with such happiness Mikhal couldn't help but feel his lips curl involuntarily in a more subdued smile. But then the young man abruptly collapsed to his knees, the energy seemingly gone from his body before falling face-first to the ground so bonelessly that Winterfell's resident Maester couldn't help but think he had dropped dead before their eyes.

For a moment there was stillness. And then, there was pandemonium. There was movement and shouting in the yard as the people around them solider and worker alike all calmoured to make their voices heard, their questions and their statements an indistinguishable but almost deafening din in contrast to the usual silence of the northern nights.

Arya at last managed to escape her lord father's grip and had reached Jon's side in scarcely the blink of an eye: shaking him vigorously to try and wake him up and calling for someone to help her, her posture tense as a drawn bowstring. Luwin made his way to Jon's other side before checking the side of his neck for that steady pulsing vein that meant his heart still pumped blood through his prone body.

He grabbed Arya's shaking hand and smiled at her.

"He's alright child." Mikhal said. "Only sleeping for now." He reassured, mostly for her but also to calm his own racing thoughts. Now that he could reflect on what had happened in the Sept, he could think of nothing like it he had ever seen before. And it left only more questions than answers in its wake. Lord Eddard was taking command nearby, ordering everyone to disperse, for some of his men to help Luwin get Jon into the castle while Lady Catelyn slowly made her way over to the two Stark children he was kneeling by.

"Come along Arya." She asked quietly, the minute trembling in her hands Mikhal noticed gone by the time they touched her second daughter's shoulders.

"But I need to stay with Jon!" The willful girl exclaimed, her eyes never wavering from Jon's unconscious face even as the guards managed to get him onto a board to carry him to Luwin's chambers. "He healed me, I have to stay with him until he wakes up!" she continued, rising from her kneeling position to follow her bastard sibling's carried body.

"What you need to do is rest young lady." Mikhal said sternly, right hand alighting on her left shoulder as she attempted to brush past him. "We don't know how or why you've recovered, but-"

She spoke up before he could finish. "I'm telling you it was Jon! In the fire, he breathed and he brought smoke out of me! And when the smoke was gone I was better and he was hurt!" Her eyes betrayed that the irritation in her tone was worry about her favorite sibling's condition being a result of helping her to his eyes.

"Which means that until we are certain he will be alright, we should make certain that his efforts are not undone simply because his patient is too stubborn to let his work settle, shouldn't we?" He asked in return. The girl began to worry her lip, obviously thinking about what he had asked of her.

"For now, we need to see what might be wrong with Jon. And until we know that, tis safer for everyone if he is kept where he can be undisturbed. Much like you were." Mikhal continued. She still looked ready to try making to break away from his hand on her shoulder to follow him.

He went down on his knees so that he was eye level with her, though it somewhat pained him to do so with how hard the ground of Winterfell could be. "I promise you Arya:" he said. "That as soon as Jon is well enough to have visitors, you will be the first I tell after your lord father."

Her grey eyes, so much like Lord Eddard's, gazed into his for a long moment. Her gaze dropped to the ground in reluctant acquiescence. "As you say Maester Luwin." She whispered stiffly. As Mikhal rose again and Lady Catelyn took his place while placing her arms around her healthy young girl, he knew that this wasn't over. But it was the best he knew he would get from her for now. As he hurried to his chambers at a slightly faster walking pace than he was used to, his mind wandered back to the questions that had started arising at the scene of the burning Sept.

How had Jon managed to create a fire so intense that it could collapse the building within the course of a night? Yes, it was possible for him to take a torch to every wooden support in the place, but even if he had, unless the fires had already been burning for hours already through part of a day, it would've taken a fairly long time to eat through enough of them to cause the thing to cave in like that. And for that matter, what material had he been using that could've possibly set the stone alight as well? The only materials he knew of that could burn solid stone so badly were pitch, wildfire and dragonfire. But there was no evidence of pitch being used, it was too far too controlled to be wildfire and well, unless Jon had managed to smuggle a dragon egg into the Sept and then hidden the resulting live dragon somewhere in his posterior, Mikhal very much doubted that it was the third option. And why was Arya convinced that Jon had healed her by bringing her into the fire? If anything, the smoke from the burning wood and the heat combining with the flames alighting the clothes on her skin should've harmed her even worse than she was or even outright killed her from her limited capacity to breathe.

But instead she was here: swifter than the wind and looking as though she had never been sickened in her life, let alone days away from knocking upon the door of the Stranger.

The teachings of the Citadel in Oldtown had prepared him for many things in the forging of his chain, but this…this made him feel as though he was that same awestruck boy leaving the Riverlands behind for using his mind in loyal service to Westeros.

As he reached his chambers, he cautiously opened the door. He felt unsure whether or not Jon would answer any of the questions he asked the boy. Perhaps he should request Lord Eddard speak to the young man first, see if he could coax any answers out of him first so that Mikhal might have a basic idea of what Jon claimed had happened to work with.

He found his medicines within moments, all the while pondering what Jon could have possibly done in there. As he entered the sick chamber, he was struck by the sudden heat in the room. Winterfell was normally a temperate castle due to its construction above the heated underground spring. But the inside of this side-chamber to his own quarters where he'd instructed the men to take Jon was almost as humid as the glasshouse garden where the plants were tended by the servants.

As he continued to Jon's side, he noticed that the room's temperature was hotter the closer he got to the boy's bedside. But he would do his duty and discover the truth. He turned the bastard Stark's head left and right, checking his unconscious physical responses. He opened his left eye to see how his pupils reacted to light. He was startled to find that Jon's pupils had now completely encompassed his normally grey irises so that it seemed his eyes were pitch black. The boy's lips were moving as if he were speaking to someone, only the faintest whispers of sound emerging.

Maester Luwin felt a shiver at the possibility of Jon being trapped within the confines of his own mind. A physical ailment was one thing. But an ailment of the mind…That was a beast of an entirely different nature. Setting his materials down beside him on the table, he squared his shoulders and resolved to have news for the Lord and Lady of Winterfell before morning's dawn.

_'Perhaps by then I shall have a better idea of Jon's ailment.'_ He had thought with cautious optimism.

By the morning's light he had no news for Lord and Lady Stark. As well as even fewer certainty about what could be wrong with the boy than he'd had the night before.

For the first time in a long while Mikhal Luwin knew he was facing something entirely unknown. Something that was not entirely natural. Something other Maesters had been stripped of their office and their chains for attempting to study.

For the first time in a long while, Mikhal Luwin felt cold fear in the pit of his stomach.

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><p>Author's Note: My major thanks to all of you who have reviewed, followed and favorited the story thus far! As always: reviews, criticism and questions are all equally welcomed and encouraged.<p> 


	4. Jon II

The first sense Jon regained was his sight. It did him no good however. The pitch black he awoke to was absolute. His eyes couldn't decide whether he was in a place so deep that no light could reach it or if he had just completely lost the use of his eyes after using what remained of his drained strength to escape the collapsed Sept. As his mind slowly shifted from insentience to awareness, his other senses catalogued what sensations they could. His skin told him that he was naked as the day he had been born, his back resting upon a smooth surface that was unlike stone or steel or soil or any solid material he had ever felt. His ears told him that the only disturbance in the still air came from the shifting of his body into an upright position.

As he braced his hands against the ground and bent his knees to push himself upright, Jon's ears picked up on something else. Faint murmurs. Countless whispers that came from everywhere around him. And yet, there was nothing moving. Not even the smallest shifting of the wind to indicate anyone was even alive in this empty place, let alone speaking.

Being effectively trapped and blind, Jon wasn't sure what he should do. He cautiously stood up; the thundering of his heartbeat behind his ribs almost threatening to drown out the whispers.

On instinct, his right hand pressed to his chest to try and calm the racing organ. Without warning, a light began to shine under his hand where it touched his chest. Jon had only a second to look at his hand in astonishment before someone spoke as though directly in front of him.

"Very good young one." It said: its voice sounding like a highborn-woman of Lady Catelyn's age.

Startled by the sudden noise, Jon's hand dropped as he quickly moved backward. He looked everywhere he could think. His right side. Left side. Even up where he assumed some sort of sky must be. Still the impenetrable darkness shrouded his eyes. Jon looked to where his hand told him it was. He slowly flexed the fingers, clenching them into a fist before relaxing them into an open palm. Slowly his hand came back into contact with his chest above his beating heart.

The light shone again and the voice returned.

"Are you prepared to listen now?" The voice asked, its tone speaking of amusement at his startled reaction.

Jon knew there was no mistaking it now. This was the presence in the flames. The other voices speaking in concert just below the surface of it, the shifting quality and echo of it even as it attempted to steady itself. This was the one that had told him how to save Arya.

And the voice was coming from the light in his chest.

"That would depend on what you wish to say." John answered, heartbeat slowing as he remembered what the voice had done to help him with the ritual that had tired him so much prior to waking up in this place.

"You have done what was asked of you." The woman's voice said. "Now, you face three trials. A trial of the mind. A trial of the heart. And a trial of the soul." There was a pause before she continued. Her words carried a tone of warning and sadness, much as Jon imagined a parent sending their child off to battle yet unsure if they would return unharmed might.

"Be wary young one. This realm is shaped by forces both external and internal. If you pass the tests, your spirit and your power will be stronger for it. But if you fail like so many others before you, you will die."

Jon felt a chill in his heart despite the light emanating from it beneath his hand. He was in a realm distinctly not mortal. With strange powers he hadn't truly acknowledged until three days ago let alone accepted. While being told by an unseeable unknowable voice that unless he passed unknown tests he had been thrust into without any warning at all that he would die.

_'Yes, I think these odds certainly qualify as bad ones.'_ He thought as he tried to get his rising sense of panic under control.

"Remember this: the tests are of your own devising." The voice continued. "Use that as you may. And good luck." It concluded as its voice began to fade out.

Jon called aloud: "Wait! How do I find my way?!" If he was going to be facing death, he at least wanted to be able to see it coming.

An old crone's cackling answered him. "How do you use a burning torch to light a darkened one?" was the only response he received before the presence was gone.

Jon called for minutes on end, his glowing hand remaining over his heart in a stubborn attempt to contact the being that had left him stranded. But after so much futile effort, he had to conclude that he was on his own.

So he paced, hand remaining over his heart as the faint rays of light that shone past his fingers served to very faintly outline a foggy ground that for all appearances seemed to be smoke made solid. As he glanced at where he was walking, Jon pondered the voice's question.

_'Use a burning torch to light a darkened one? That's simple: all you have to do is hold the fire to the other torch and it…will…catch.'_

Jon stopped where he stood. Somehow, he had to transfer the fire beneath his chest into his hand. A simple solution complicated by his being entirely unsure how to go about doing so. He tried to move his hand around his chest to catch his hand. He tried to push his hand into his chest only to feel pressure on his ribs instead of light filling his grip. So then he decided to try thinking of it. He pictured the fire underneath his fingers. He pictured its crackling warmth. He pictured the pretty oranges and yellow lights that caused shadows to dance upon the walls. His hand felt warmer, but the light faded as soon as he tried to take his hand off his chest.

The appendage was warmed as though he had thawed it after a day of snowball fighting with Robb in the courtyard, but that was hardly going to help him to see. Jon tried again, this time dredging up every memory of fire that he could. The chamber maids stoking the coals in the dying embers. The flickers of ash and spark that leapt for a brief moment into the air before snuffing out midflight. The smell of cooking and burned meat. The painful feeling of holding his hands too close to the fire. Of falling asleep in front of the fire and waking when his skin felt like it was slowly blistering under the heat. Everything he could think of, he did as he placed his hand back on his chest.

Without warning, there was a flare on the back of his hand. As Jon's left hand instinctively raised to shield his eyes, he paused. Slowly, he lowered the unencumbered appendage. There before his disbelieving eyes was his hand. But where once the light had shone underneath his chest, now it was an open crackling flame on the back of his hand. He the aflame right hand away from his naked chest.

As it was allowed space, the flame seemed to grow until it encompassed his entire hand. Jon watched it awestruck as he experimentally flexed his fingers, watching the shimmers of heat and tongues of flame as they shifted and moved with his every twitch.

Despite being naked and unarmed, Jon felt warmer. He had this fire that came from within him. And come what may, he would face it with the clarity of light. He looked down at his feet, noticing that there was a path of deep red underneath him. Jon looked into the distance, his hand thrust out in front of him to illuminate his way. Wherever the light of the flame touched, Jon could see the path lit up.

_'Every journey begins with a single step.' _Jon recalled Maester Luwin telling him once. Now that he had found the path, it was up to him to follow it. Jon started walking.

The further he walked, the earthier and more familiar the ground became. As Jon continued, he looked around, seeing that as he moved, it was like he was walking through an underground passageway now, the darkness visibly constricting around him. But still he walked on, the path clear in the light he cast if he would but follow it.

Soon his hand touched upon a wooden door. With nary a moment's hesitation Jon pushed it open and discovered that he had entered the training area of Winterfell's courtyard. He spun around in place, seeing that the great keep appeared to be deserted. He looked down at himself, noticing that he was now in his leather training clothes, a wooden sword at his hip.

"Something catch your attention brother?" Robb's voice inquired behind him.

Jon spun around in surprise. There before him was Robb. But it was not the Robb he remembered. This one was older. He was taller and more solid, his clothes that of a high lord, his red hair and full beard contrasting the streaks of grey that had begun lining them. This was not Robb the heir. This was Robb the lord. Just as Jon had always imagined him.

"Robb? What-" Jon began to ask before he noticed Robb had both hands atop the pommel of ice, which was stuck in the ground tip first in front of him.

"As I seem to recall, it was** your** challenge to me for the right of Lordship that brought us to this impasse." His brother said, warmth in his tone but a great resignation in his eyes.

"Challenge of what?!" Jon exclaimed in shock. All his life it had been made abundantly clear to him that Robb was the rightful heir to Winterfell. That as Lord Stark's eldest trueborn son, the inheritance of the title automatically flowed to him by the laws of gods and men alike. Why should he have challenged that?

"I wish I could convince you to give up this selfish quest Jon. But I cannot abide the possibility of a usurper. You understand I hope." Robb continued, hands now gripping the hilt as he inexorably drew Ice out of the frost covered ground. Winterfell was silent as a grave but for Jon's heavy breathing and the sound of Robb's first cautious but sure steps toward his half-brother.

Jon couldn't believe this was happening. He couldn't fight his brother, he couldn't! He hadn't wanted the title of Lord of Winterfell. Why was this to be his test?

_'Liar.'_ His traitorous mind whispered, remembering their childish game of titles and swordplay. Remembering when he tried to claim Lord of Winterfell. Rembering Robb bluntly telling him he wasn't allowed to because he was a bastard. A Snow.

Jon didn't have time to get lost in his memories as he desperately rolled to the right, Robb's overhead cleave with the valeryian steel blade impacted the ground with enough force to leave a gouge in it.

_'How did he get so fast?!'_ Jon thought incredulously, leaping backward as his brother followed up with a thrust. He was already panting hard, feeling hyper-aware that he only had his leather practice clothes while Robb had what appeared to be partial plate underneath his furred cape as well as chainmail adorning him.

But he already knew why Robb was still faster despite the handicap of better armor. Robb was bigger. Robb was older. Robb had a longer reach. And Robb was showing absolutely no hesitation even as his mouth spoke the words: "For what it's worth, I will always love you brother."

Jon kept back-peddling, rolling, spinning. Anything to keep his momentum and prevent Robb from hitting him with the sword. He had seen Ice behead a man many a time before. He doubted his few layers of boiled leather and cloth padding would stand in the way of that if he stood still for too long.

The first shock of the fight came when Jon decided that he may as well use the wooden sword for however long it may last. As he drew it from the scabbard, he remembered his burning hand and wished with all his heart he could use his power now. The sword lit up as though it had been soaked in oil. Robb stopped briefly, hesitation making him instinctively look at the bright light that had flared so suddenly near Jon.

Jon quickly capitalized on his brother's distraction, the flames leaving a brief glowing trail in the air as he swung it toward Robb's left leg. Robb used Ice to parry the sword by bringing it down to the ground, the tip hitting the dirt before it reached the Lord of Winterfell. But where the blade touched the ground a fire flared up. Not strong nor bright but constant.

Robb made Ice slide up along the back part of Jon's lit practice sword to try and strike him. With reflexes he didn't remember having before, Jon leaned forward while keeping the flaming sword on Ice, his body corkscrewing so that he controlled the longsword's ascent to pass in an arc over him and to hit the ground on the other side while his fiery blade left more blazes on the ground where it touched. As Jon closed in, he angled his right side to shoulder check Robb and deliver a violent shove back. As soon as he felt his brother's body react to his unorthodox tactic, Jon swiped his blade through the ground at their feet, leaving a blazing trail connecting the two points of fire between them.

Robb regained his footing as he moved backward, swinging defensively at Jon. Jon moved back as well, burning sword at the ready in front of him. He and Robb eyed each other as the flames merrily danced on the ground and on the wooden practice sword, oblivious to the struggle taking place in this empty mockery of Winterfell.

"Just tell me why Jon?" Robb called as they circled each other, the flames between them both as the ground crunched beneath their boots. Their breaths puffed in the air as Robb asked again: "Why do you so want to claim the Lordship of Winterfell? Why do you desire it so?"

"Because I am not just a bastard!" He called back in answer, allowing himself to answer this imaginary Robb in a way he had always wanted. Some long repressed anger seeped into his voice as he continued. "I am as much worthy of being father's legacy as you! I am his blood too! Simply because I was not born to Lady Catelyn does not merit me being branded as his shame instead of his son!" He shouted even as his eyes were taking in a curious sight. As they had circled each other across the flames, occasionally Jon would feint forward in different directions to try and create an opening in Robb's guard. Robb meanwhile would feint forward to the left or the right, but never straight. Not when the flames where in front of him.

"Do you truly think that matters to the world? To anyone who does not know you?" Robb softly reproached even as they continued prowl.

Jon's heart hurt at the question. He remained silent, instead deciding he needed to test his theory's validity as to Robb's avoidance of the flames. As Robb feinted to go to the left around the flames, Jon recklessly dove straight through them: his sword swinging at Robb's head. Startled, his red-headed brother brought Ice up to parry. But this was merely a distraction, for as soon as the wooden sword touched the edge of Ice, Jon had brought it straight down before using it to draw a semi-circle in front of Robb's feet.

Robb jumped back as though he had been scalded. But still, the ancestral Stark sword flashed toward Jon's head. In less than a moment Jon had taken three steps back, his eyes on Robb. Suddenly Robb moved around the flames, coming in for a wide swing. Jon back pedaled in an adrenaline fueled haze, his left hand pulling him back toward a weapon rack that was nearby them. As he spun away from Robb's downward slash, he noticed something else.

Despite the force behind Robb's blow, his sword stopped inches from the weapon rack as though an invisible force prevented him from touching it. Astonished, Jon quickly pushed the rack toward his brother, who jumped away. As his brother moved around the fallen equipment, Jon stepped onto it, his fiery sword flashing toward Robb's legs yet again.

His brother moved away, stopping as though hitting a solid wall when he almost touched a wooden post that supported the overhang and balcony above. Jon drove the sword tip forward at Robb's midsection, thinking to end this in one blow.

Robb spun away as Jon's blunted tip impossibly sunk into the support and set it ablaze in an instant. Jon was forced to let go of the wooden sword as Robb's hands attempted to separate his hands from his body at the wrist with an upward slash. As his hands moved back, Robb had brought the pommel to bear and smashed it into Jon's face before kicking him in his stomach so hard he flew backward two feet before landing on his back with a loud thud.

Jon let out a muffled cry into his hands as they covered his almost certainly broken nose. The pain was a sharp reminder of the voice's warning about his danger. Jon scrambled backward as his aged up half-brother stalked toward him, his right hand blindly thrusting outward as his memories of the fire in the Sept rushed to the forefront. A gout of bright red flame erupted from Jon's outstretched hand, scorching the ground in front of him in wide cone toward his attacker, who had swiftly moved back again.

Jon's breath was ragged, his every intake and exhale bringing a fresh wave of pain from his ruined nose. The blood dripped steadily, forming a small red pool at his feet as he stood up. His mind was racing as he attempted to puzzle out how he could use Robb's weaknesses to win.

_'He can't pass through my flames. And he can't harm Winterfell itself. I can understand my fire, but why can he not strike anything of Winterfell? Is he not the lord of it?'_ Jon wondered as Robb edged his way around the flames. Unbidden, a memory of something their father had once said sprang to mind. _'The man who forgets leadership is a burden as well as a privilege will find it melts away in his grasp like a snowflake in the palm of his hand.'_

And then it occurred to Jon what that might mean. That Robb Stark was as much constrained by his title of Lord of Winterfell as he had been elevated by it. That Robb had been born into a cage that he had no hope of escaping. A comfortably lined cage no doubt, but a cage it was none the less. Jon Snow on the other hand, had been trained by expert warriors and educated by a dedicated scholar. From an objective standpoint, he had choices open to him that Robb would never know.

As Robb came around the fire and started to swing his sword down at Jon again, Jon remained standing where he was. From his position, he spoke.

"I don't need to fight you Robb." He said calmly, heart beating rapidly as the blade stopped inches from his dark hair.

Robb simply looked at him, frozen in that position he had been in when swinging the sword.

"I don't need to fight you." Jon repeated, amazed at the feeling of a weight lifting that accompanied his declaration.

"You may be the Lord of Winterfell, but you have no choice." Jon continued, the words spilling from him without conscious thought. "I have learned to be a lord. Or a warrior. Or a scholar. No matter what I may become, it will only ever be **my** choice."

He looked around this abandoned Winterfell one last time, seeing the hills and walls, his imagination supplying the view of a fire trapped within a pit, trapped and able to be extinguished with a single errant shovelful of dirt.

"I choose to be free." Jon said as Robb lowered his blade, blade sinking into the ground as his hands rested on the pommel again and the fires and destruction began to reverse itself. "I choose to go where I wish, not where I am bidden."

He smiled at Robb, his teeth bloodstained from his now clotted nose. "Goodbye brother." He said, turning toward the gate of the keep. As he approached, it opened to reveal the night again. Jon brought the flame to mind again, his hand once more burning. Taking a single last breath, he stepped out of the familiar grounds and back into the shadows.

_'One down, two to go.'_ He thought to himself as his nose gave a pained twinge.

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><p>Author's Note: As always reviews, criticisms, questions and comments are welcomed and encouraged! Many thanks to all of you who have been kind enough to leave your thoughts as well as favoritefollow! :)


	5. Catelyn I

Catelyn Stark was in a position many of the Winterfell household would call unusual. She was at Jon Snow's bedside, watching over him while Maester Luwin attempted to discover the cause of his current lack of consciousness.

But Catelyn felt that it was perfectly reasonable for her to be here. She may still be resentful of Eddard for bringing his bastard son back to Winterfell to be raised alongside his trueborn heirs, but she loved her husband. Even in spite of her continued resentment at his decision and his constant refusal to ever explain his reasoning, she loved him. And just as she managed to both hate and love her lord husband, so was Catelyn able to both hate and pity Jon Snow.

She knew in her heart that he had done nothing to foster her resentment of him save to exist. And she knew he was not the one truly deserving of her dark feelings, but a product of those who were. It was why she had been by his side when he had taken ill as a babe: because despite everything her jealous heart and her upraising as a proper lady told her, she knew it was not right to feel such poisonous vitriol toward the one person in the whole affair who was entirely innocent of any wrongdoing.

And after he had done something beyond Maester Luwin, Septa Mordane or even Eddard Stark's understanding of what was possible to heal her little Arya, Catelyn could easily acknowledge she owed him this much.

**Family. Duty. Honor.**

Those were the words of Riverland's ruling family the Tullys. Her house before she had come north to marry the middle Stark brother who had never thought to be Lord of Winterfell, let alone lead a rebellion against the Iron Throne. While Jon's actions had clearly called upon unknown powers whose intentions they could not be sure of, it had also lead directly resolved the question of Arya's sickness positively when neither medicine nor prayer had managed to. That was worth consideration no matter who or what you were to her mind.

So she would stand vigil by his bedside as she had when he was still a baby. Provide a washcloth for his burning brow, shift and tend him as the Maester instructed and hold his hand even as she winced from the physical discomfort of his heated palm on her own feeling as though it was burning her if she held it too long and the humid air of the chamber felt like it was trying to suffocate them both with its oppressive weight.

All of her children were made aware of what had happened to Jon by the morning after the fire and acted as if he would ultimately be alright. Robb, Bran and even young Rickon had requested that she tell Jon's unresponsive form about their training and the boyish adventures he had missed during the days to follow. She complied every time, unable to bear refusing the fragile hope on their faces when the boys had asked her so earnestly. Sansa had offered more than once to help Catelyn care for Jon whether by application of medicine or prayer. (Though considering the number of candles Septa Mordane told her the eldest girl had borrowed thus far, it seemed Sansa was fulfilling the prayer part of it just fine without Catelyn's prompting.) And it had been a constant challenge just to get Arya to attempt her lessons ever since the fire in the Sept. If not otherwise prodded, she would spend most of her waking moments trying to sneak into the sickroom adjacent to Maester Luwin's chambers where the boy was being kept to be at her bastard sibling's bedside.

Catelyn was not inclined to allow her to do so in the face of the circumstances. Not because she didn't think that Arya would catch anything from the boy she was so (inexplicably) close to. But more because despite their calmness in front of the children and the servants, no one aware of Jon Snow's true condition had the first idea what could possibly be going on within the boy's body or mind. As recently as two days ago for instance, she and Maester Luwin noticed that Jon Snow had somehow managed to break his own nose sometime in the night despite not appearing to move more than the occasional twitch or the barest movement of his lips. Catelyn may not have understood the unusually close relationship shared between her youngest daughter and her husband's bastard son, but she knew it would do neither of them any good to let her see him like this. She had instead been gently prodding her willful Arya into going about her lessons by telling her she needed to do them. That way when Jon awoke she would be able to tell him the things she had done with Sansa and the Septa. Arya had sullenly answered each time that nothing the Septa ever taught merited sharing with Jon. But she always reluctantly complied for a few days when Catelyn suggested it.

Her lord husband, in between running Winterfell and telling any bannermen who might inquire that they were dealing with the aftermath of a fire in the Sept while treating some injuries that had resulted, had meanwhile taken to observing Jon Snow from the doorway of the room where his unconscious body was kept. He never seemed to sweat despite the heavy heat in the room, his eyes always seeming so far away when he did. His gaze told her that he wasn't simply seeing Jon lying there, but answers and questions he had not even realized existed until that moment.

Catelyn had observed he also spent far more time in the godswood than usual these days. Though to what purpose she and Maester Luwin could never quite fathom.

But that was how things had been moving around the castle walls of this frozen part of the world while Jon Snow appeared almost literally frozen in time, his body barely responsive while his normally grey eyes were now severely bloodshot and consumed entirely by his irises. More than once Catelyn wondered if she should fashion yet another prayer wheel as she had when he had been ill or should she retrieve the one she had made back then?

She shook her head softly, jolting out of her reverie as the door began to softly swing open. Today was the day he needed to be washed. Since Sansa had recently asked again about how to help her half-brother, Catelyn had decided she should be allowed to do so. She had sent a servant girl to fetch her red-haired daughter so that she might join her mother in caring for her illegitimate sibling. While it would certainly serve as a valuable first experience for Sansa creating for a sick man, Catelyn had also thought in the back of her mind that perhaps if the New Gods looked upon this as a sign of Catelyn seeking to build better ties between her husband's baseborn and trueborn children they would lend him what aid they could spare.

_'Heaven knows I may not deserve to be heard by them,'_ She thought as her lovely fire-headed girl entered the chamber, her blue eyes unsure as she took in Jon's still form and sweat already beading at her hairline as the humid air rushed to greet yet another victim. _'But surely what he has done for my family is worth their consideration. And perhaps if they do not wish to hear my plea, they will hear Sansa's.'_

As she began to instruct her eldest girl on how they were going to be treating to Jon's unconscious state, Catelyn could only hope that whatever was happening to him, that he would not suffer for doing the right thing by her family.

Sansa placed herself in a chair by Jon's head while Catelyn's was right in the middle of the bedside, Jon's covered torso facing her as she was asked what it was she needed help with. It was a fairly simple process. The young bastard was currently wearing a long sleeping tunic that almost reached his knees, being slightly taller than most Starks were at this age. And while she would wash the boy's legs and feet while working her way up to his hips, it would be Sansa's duty to wash his brow, his neck, his arms and his chest before they met in the middle.

"Why can Jon not be moved to a tub mother?" Sansa asked, her sky-blue eyes speaking to her uncertainty as to what the purpose behind washing him by hand was. She appeared uncomfortable to have asked a question that implied her mother or Maester Luwin didn't know what they were doing with her bastard half-brother. Catelyn smiled so as to reassure her she didn't mind the question.

"Maester Luwin is not certain we could keep track of him in the tub. If we clean him by hand, there's little possibility for a moment of inattention leading to his death by drowning." She told her, left hand on her shoulder as she leaned in to kiss her daughter's forehead. "But I am proud of your concern Sansa. The Seven smile on those who show such compassion to others."

Sansa's tentative and hopeful smile allowed her to express one of her own. "Now take the bowl of water and the cloth there." She continued, pointing it out on the table nearby. "Once you have it, start with his face before moving to the neck."

Sansa nodded, a determined set to her face now. Her delicate fingers wrung the cloth a bit before she brought it to bear on Jon Snow's head, as lightly as the touch of a feather. Catelyn watched her for a pair of moments as she cleaned him before she lifted the covers to the end of the bed and brought Jon's right leg up off the bed. As she washed the underside and top of his leg, her mind wandered.

Maester Luwin had informed her and Eddard that first morning that he had no idea what was wrong with the boy. Not as in he had no idea what the specific ailment was. More as in Jon Snow was perfectly healthy and yet his body was only barely subsisting itself, his mind seemingly gone but for the slightest registers of activity from twitching eyelids and responses to physical stimuli.

It was a mystery of one of the highest orders, one he hadn't been certain whether he should ask the advice of the Citadel on or not. When Catelyn and her lord husband had expressed their incredulity at Maester Luwin's reluctance at involving his order, he had been quiet for a short time. He lowered and raised his eyes at them as he alternately contemplated them and the stone floor of Eddard's solar, visibly struggling to find the words to say what he needed to.

They were both respectful of his need to gather his thoughts, waiting patiently for him to speak his peace.

"My Lord, My Lady." He began quietly. "If I report Jon Snow's symptoms to the Citadel, I fear the measures they will ask me to take. Measures I do not think will be to anyone's liking."

Her husband asked the question for the both of them. "And why might that be Maester Luwin?"

"Because my lord," He answered, looking Eddard dead in the eye so that he would know how utterly serious Mikhal was being when he said this. "I fear that they may ask me to slip Jon the Essence of Nightshade to ease his passing."

Catelyn and Eddard both drew breath sharply. To ask such a thing of Maester Luwin…

"What is it you are not telling us Maester Luwin?" Catelyn asked. "Why would they ask this of you? Jon Snow is not dying is he?"

Catelyn was ashamed of herself as a more primal side of her being briefly flared pleasurably at the thought of Jon Snow's accursed presence gone from her life. She reminded herself sternly that she had been down that road once before. No matter what her worst impulses told her, she was not going to wish him dead a second time. Not when it led to such unnecessary suffering and pain. He may not have been a babe now, but he no more deserved such a thing wished on him than he had the day he'd been struck by the fever.

"No my lady, he is not dying." Mikhal responded. "He is in fact, healthier than I can recall him being. But that is not what would concern the Citadel."

Ned's grey eyes narrowed slightly.

"You speak of the fire in the Sept." His statement was certain.

Mikhal nodded. "I do Lord Stark." He said. "If I tell them of Jon's current state of unconsciousness, I will need to explain the circumstances of how he came to be knocked out. And in the eyes of the Citadel, what Jon did is likely a magical ritual. One that resulted in destruction and has affected him to an unknown degree."

Catelyn could feel a headache coming on.

Maester Luwin continued. "Maesters have been stripped of their chain and banned from Westeros for pursuing this sort of matter before." Mikhal looked pensive before he pursed his lips, obviously disagreeing with the position he was about to speak. "The Order takes a very dim view of those who meddle in inherently volatile matters such as this without following the Citadel's guidelines; no matter their intentions. It is one of the primary reasons there was such bad blood between the Citadel and the Alchemist's Guild back when they were a powerful force in the south."

Catelyn noticed her husband's knuckles whitening as he gripped the edge of his desk.

"They would ask you to murder a young boy for this?" He asked.

Mikhal didn't have the heart to say the word, only bowed his head in confirmation.

Catelyn stood up abruptly. "Than the solution is simple, is it not?" She said. The two men looked at her, curiosity reflected in their gazes. "We help Jon Snow as best we can. And we keep the Citadel out of it entirely."

Maester Luwin looked unsure, clearly torn between his duty and his heart.

"My lady-" he began before she interrupted him.

"In your opinion Mikhal, does Jon Snow represent a threat to the realm?" She asked.

He shook his head in the negative.

"Than that simplifies it immensely. Until he awakes he is more a danger to himself than to anyone else."

Maester Luwin looked to her lord husband for confirmation.

"My lady wife speaks for us both Maester Luwin. See to Jon as best you can. We will only revisit the issue once he has awakened." He ordered.

Maester Luwin looked relieved at not needing to choose between the realm and the Stark family for now. Her husband's eyes had shone with such gratitude for her speaking on Jon's behalf that she felt somewhat guilty that she was only doing so to repay her debt to him for helping her family.

Her thoughts were interrupted as Sansa let out a shrill scream.

Dropping his left leg, she swiveled her head to take in a macabre sight. Her daughter had fallen backwards out of the chair, the bowl of water forgotten on the floor and the cloth still on the bed and stained red. Her face was white as a sheet, her body shaking like a leaf as she appeared to be transfixed at her bastard half-sibling's visage.

As she looked at Jon Snow's face, she saw something she had never thought or wanted to see. Where before his eyes had been half-lidded and almost asleep now they were wide open. But the eyes themselves were gone, only empty bloody sockets left. He was moaning softly, the loudest noise Catelyn had ever heard him make as tears of blood leaked down his cheeks and the side of his face as though the eyes had just been crushed into a pulp.

She quickly moved toward her daughter, stepping in front of her line of vision so she wouldn't need to continue looking into the gaping holes where his grey Stark eyes had once been. She urgently grabbed Sansa by the shoulders.

"Go get Maester Luwin Sansa! Go now!" She urged her, moving her toward the door without moving out of the way of her eyes. Sansa's legs were shaking as she hurriedly made her way to the door, eyes wide and afraid. Catelyn made sure she was gone before she moved back to Jon Snow's side. She quickly moved the cloth to his still moaning face. With a jolt, she realized that if his voice was any louder, Jon Snow's moans would've been screams.

Catelyn Stark knew then that Maester Luwin was right. This was something unnatural. This was something beyond anything they had prepared for. She thought of praying to the Seven for help. But where would she begin to ask their guidance on this matter?

Catelyn Stark felt a chill down her spine as she cleaned the blood on Snow's face eyes, trying not to make his pain any worse. _'Where there are gods, there are surely demons.'_ Her mind whispered to her. The question was, which one would hold sway over Jon Snow when he awoke?

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><p>Author's Note: My grateful thanks to all of you who have reviewed, favorited and followed this story thus far! As always reviews, criticisms and comments are my bread and butter! :)<p> 


	6. Jon III

Jon couldn't tell how long he had been walking. It might've been an hour a day a night. Even a week for all the passing of time could be marked. His only company was the flickering orange light that currently engulfed his outstretched right hand. The red path stretched out endlessly before his eyes, a streak on the ground that led to an unseen horizon. One that could either hold a new dawn or setting sun. The beginning or the end. But Jon had already vowed to himself he would pass these tests no matter what it took.

_'Then again, when my only choices are pass or die…_' He thought morbidly. He idly traced patterns through the air as he walked, his eyes still kept on the path where the light shone. As he continued on, he wondered what was happening to his body in the real world. Who was tasked with taking care of him? Maester Luwin was the most logical choice. Old Nan might watch him in the night for any dramatic changes. But it was unlikely that anyone outside of Lord and Lady Stark would be allowed to check on him.

For that, he was glad. He didn't want to see his brothers or sisters to see him like this.

He felt a change in the air again. This time it felt as though he was shifting from naked to being clothed in light leather and chainmail armor. Heavier but more solid than his simple training armor. As he continued forward, the path began to feel like hard packed soil with a thin layer of loose shifting yet infinitely tiny grains of earth atop it. He wasn't sure what to expect now as he'd never experienced sand before in his life even if he had heard of it when Maester Luwin had taught them of Dorne.

Soon enough he came to a set of heavy stone doors. Straining to push them with both his arms, right hand still lit, he managed to push them open enough to slip through. What he stepped into was something else entirely.

It was an arena of some kind. That much was obvious from the surrounding seating that went higher up and farther back as a giant circle. The stone appeared to be weathered but had obviously been grand at one time. Jon looked to the sky.

_'Can it rain in this place?'_ He wondered to himself, taking note of the darkened storm clouds that occasionally echoed with the sound of thunder and constantly shifting air that threatened a downpour at any moment.

"It does not matter." A deep voice answered from what Jon had thought at a glance to be an empty royalty box to his left. Jon quickly turned, hands reaching for a weapon that he did not possess as he took in the figure that he could've sworn wasn't there a moment ago.

It looked to be a robed man, all of his face obscured but for a dark beard that extended beyond the shadows that his hood created. His voice sounded distorted, as though he were speaking through a haze or underwater. He stood up and in the blink of an eye, large torches were lit along the walls of the center of the arena and circular ones large enough to fit several men comfortably within them lit at the fringes of the arena walls, seemingly oblivious to the coming storm as a loud crack of thunder echoed like a whip wielded by the hand of the gods.

When Jon looked at the box again, the man was gone. But before he could ponder where the figure could've possibly gone, the man spoke from inside the arena to the right of where Jon was.

"Whether the storm comes or goes, you must still face what lies ahead." The man said as if he hadn't somehow just disappeared from several hundred feet away and appeared again directly behind Jon.

Jon jumped, his constant calling and use of the inner flame causing it to spring to his right hand on instinct as he landed away from the figure with his open palm outstretched threateningly.

The figure only chuckled. "If I were you, I'd worry more about him." He said, right hand gesturing to a changing form that was getting closer and closer with every step.

Its appearance was like nothing Jon had ever seen before. The legs and tail looked at first glance to be those of an upright dog though easily large enough to belong to a Direwolf. The fur was a deep red that made one think of a rich wine or a bloody wound. It was so dirt crusted and stained however that it almost appeared to be brown. In sharp contrast, its torso and arms were scaled all in pitch black and glistened like a still pond as the light from the surrounding torches reflected off it from multiple angles. Its hands were roughly shaped like a man's though it only had three large fingers: a thumb and a pair of padded fingers the thickness of two of a human's tied together. All capped with talons that looked able to cut a man to the quick. Topping its thick trunk of a neck was the head of a dragon that had an almost lupine snout and canine eyes that glowed an eerie amber color in the torchlight.

The shoulders were capped with fur while the tail appeared to have spines ridging it all the way down to the tip. All in all, it appeared to be a creature that was born from an unholy union of dragons and wolves. Jon momentarily felt an absurd stab of pity for the she-wolf that had been forced to bear this abomination and birth it.

It stopped just short of the hooded figure's hand, its height more than making up for its less than bulky stature. Jon knew however that he could ill afford to underestimate such a foe, no matter how strange and ungainly it may seem. Concentrating with all his might, Jon forced an unfamiliar second flame to occupy his left hand while he shifted into the basic fighting stance Ser Rodrik had drilled into his head over the course of countless hours on the Winterfell training grounds: his hands up around his head, right fist clenched nearby the corner of his mouth while his left fist hovered at eye level.

The creature growled at him in what could've been greeting or warning. It was a deeply foreboding voice, with a nightmarish scratchiness to it that sounded as though some cruel god had mashed two competitive means of communication between predators into one being which wound up making it sound as if its vocal chords were battling themselves with every sound it made. Jon gave a short nod while never letting his eyes leave his opponent.

"Let us see how you fare." The hooded man rasped before taking a step back again and disappearing into the central watcher's box once more. "Begin when ready." He announced grandly as a clap of thunder boomed in the sky directly overhead.

Jon barely had enough time to start moving back when the thing had charged him at the word 'Begin.' But it was proving too fast for Jon already. Its left fist had hammered into Jon's right side twice and with such force behind each blow that his bottommost rib had audibly broken with the second strike. The pain of the second hit distracted Jon's aim, causing his left hands blast of fire intended for the things chest to only glance of its shoulder.

It roared defiantly at him, a right hook slamming into Jon's nose so hard he saw stars even as he attempted to let loose another large cone of fire from his right hand that missed the creature entirely. The thing was simply too fast for him.

Every time Jon thought he had it, the thing would duck under or leap over his fire or it would simply not be where he sent the flames. Growing desperate, Jon attempted to use the torches around the arena by summoning them to him so as to catch the thing off guard. But it never allowed him enough of a break to concentrate in order to do so. The creature circled him as he tried once again to send a blast of fire at it, sweat beading his head as he struggled to breathe through broken nose and ribs, his bruises feeling as though they had bruises while his muscles screamed at him for trying to go at speeds he couldn't possibly keep up.

Jon charged the creature, feinting to the left before going right, his hands lighting up to fire off simultaneously. The creature simply moved under the fire and hammered his sternum with its right fist so hard he was blown back a foot by the force, coughing and wheezing as he fell to one knee as his lungs desperately worked overtime in an effort not to lock up on him.

The figure in the stands called out to him: "You have eyes and yet you refuse to see! Do you think that there is mercy in this place? If so, you would be gravely mistaken."

There was a sinister pause in the air as the wind picked up briefly.

"Or perhaps," The figure pronounced to another deafening crack of thunder. "You simply lacked the incentive to use your sight to its full potential." It gestured to the creature. "Give him a reason to regret his choice."

When the creature charged him to get in close, Jon unleashed another blast of fire at point blank range that splashed against its scaly chest, setting the surrounding fur alight. It roared in fury as it gripped his head in its hands, aborting his hasty attempt to stand and get back. Without another sound, it ruthlessly plunged its thick thumbs talon and all into Jon's eyeballs.

Jon Snow began screaming.

His brain almost couldn't cope with the catastrophic amount of pain his body was telling him he was in: the reptilian thumbs crushing what remained of his ruined eyes as the talons felt as though they were scraping any remains of his orbs that might've been left away. He flailed against the monstrous arms in a futile and panicked attempt to get it to stop.

Abruptly, it let go of his head and allowed him to collapse to the ground. Jon's hands instinctively covered his ruined and bleeding sockets as he continued screaming while his body curled into a ball to try to protect himself. Over the sound of his own hoarse and desperate cries, he heard the unseen man call out.

"Enough of this!" it said. "If he will not let himself see, than he is not worthy of the power he wields!"

Another clap of thunder as his command was given. "Finish him now!"

Jon could hear the creature coming toward him, could feel the heat, could see the flames licking its fur in his mind's eye. His mind raced as he realized through the haze of pain fueled adrenaline that even without his eyes he could see the flames inside his head.

He rolled away from the creature rapidly, his sense of the fire able to see the shape its' body took even with his face turned away. The shoulders were not those of a monstrous creature, but those of a young man. The head was a simple wolf's pelt head no different than what one might see on a warrior of one of the mountain tribes in the Vale or the North. The legs and the back were furred because they were leather greaves and a wolfskin cape respectively. The heat washed over a set of heavy scales that seemed to transmit heat to the body underneath through some weakened areas that provided a clearer picture.

Jon's mind raced as his gut drove him to take whatever means necessary to understand why the form before him felt familiar. He managed to block out the sensations of hurt and pain as he ignited his hands again, focusing the power in them on his sockets to reduce the clamoring of damaged nerves to a more dull yet insistent throbbing instead of the mind splitting sense of all-eclipsing agony it had been.

As the figure charged, he could sense it: the body heat outlining every move it was making in a strange riot of colors while it came at him. He flared his left hand as it blocked a swipe from the figure's right before making it impact the distinctly human jaw underneath the dead wolf's. His right hand flared as he grabbed the figure's throat, the sound of sizzling flesh clearly audible to his sensitive ears even over the boom of thunder. His knee struck the young man's sternum multiple times in short order, drawing pained grunts each time before he lifted the figure by its still burning throat and slamming it back first into the ground.

The ground crunched underneath his feet as the body impacted. Jon straddled the figure's chest, knees on the biceps before it could recover from the shock. Jon felt his agonized rage guide him as he let his right hand release the throat before his fiery fists impacted the figure's face over and over and over again, pouring his physical exhaustion, his newfound power and his fear into each strike of his blurring fists upon its visage.

As it grunted in pain at the constant strikes under his relentless assault, Jon suddenly understood why this figure was so familiar.

It was his own.

Jon's fist stopped just before his double's jaw, its labored breathing disturbing the broken skin and still wet blood that was now a fixture on his knuckles. Jon sensed the figure in the stands stand before taking a single step and managing to be just behind both sets of himself.

Jon almost shivered in its presence, a small concentrated flame buried beneath what felt like a veritable mile or more of ice. The frozen aura of this figure spoke to nothing but death and destruction. It spoke to him on a disturbingly fundamental level.

"What are you waiting for boy?" It asked him, a smile in its voice. "Finish it. Now."

Jon tried to think through the pounding in his skull that came from his empty and aching eye sockets as his newly awakened senses kept track of the fires and hot winds he could sense simultaneously.

_'This thing…it's not me. It's too feral, too wild. But is it right to kill something that seems to only be able to follow its instincts?'_ Jon could feel the animalistic version of himself twitching, attempting to get its strength back. Every fiber of his being told him to finish off the prey in front of him now while he had the chance. That he wasn't going to get another opportunity to end this.

As he suppressed that primal killer's instinct, the figure groaned sharply. When it did, a stray possibility played itself out before his mind's eye. Jon decided to see one way or another if his sudden wild hunch would pay off as it had in the first test.

"No." He answered, right hand returning to the figure's neck again as it squirmed from the heated though no longer burning hand, skin cracking and sloughing from his touch while his left hand gripped it punishingly by the hair.

"My instincts are my own." He continued, willing the creature beneath him to submit. Its struggles intensified for a moment. "No matter how strong they may feel, no matter what they may tell me, They. Do Not. Control. Me." He concluded as he slammed his animal instincts into the ground by its head with each punctuation. It quieted its struggles, recognizing his dominion at long last as he sensed the heated blood in its veins leaked slowly onto the sand below them.

"I control them." He finished breathlessly, standing on shaking legs as the adrenaline faded and the pain in his eyes returned threefold. As he staggered and started to lose his foothold, a pair of arms grabbed him by his side, lifting him so that his left arm was across its shoulders.

It was his primal instincts made flesh. The figure faded to ashes and smoke before flowing into Jon's pores. As it did, he felt strength return to his limbs, his remaining senses sharpened to heights he had never previously imagined. The remaining other chuckled to itself.

"Very good." It praised, a faint edge of what Jon thought was mocking in its tone. "Any simple creature can act and kill. It is men and gods that think and create. Remember that boy. Or the suffering you have inflicted upon yourself here will be far worse for you and for those you hold dear."

As it faded from Jon's awareness, so too did the arena. Jon's hands lit again, this time without his conscious thought. As the pain of his last two tests returned to him, his pride and his will to survive pushed him to continue onward: the fires in his hands illuminating the path ahead like a river of lava in the blackest of nights. He placed his right foot forward upon the road of red beneath him, allowing his momentum to carry him as he winced with every movement.

_'Two down, one to go.'_ He repeated to himself grimly, the mantra allowing him to continue walking when his body told him he needed to stop to lie down to rest.

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><p>Author's Note: My thanks again to everyone for your words of encouragement! Hope this chapter meets expectations. As always; reviews, critiques and comments are always welcomed and encouraged. :)<p> 


	7. Arya I

Arya Stark was not one to take no for an answer.

One of her most vivid memories came from when she was first learning to walk. She had toddled determinedly after Jon and Robb as they made their way to Maester Luwin for their lessons one day. Why? Because they had told her they had to go and she had to stay here to wait for her lady mother and her older sister.

Even at that young age, she knew she wanted to learn the things that her brothers did. She didn't see why she should be left behind simply because Jon and Robb were going somewhere they said she wasn't supposed to. If only because it sounded so much more fun than the things Sansa talked about learning from the Septa.

Robb had laughed when she tripped over her own feet trying to race into the room before the oaken door closed and Maester Luwin had been visibly exasperated with her following the boys to his chambers without her lady mother's permission. But what she remembered most had been Jon's reaction. How he had simply picked her up by the armpits, sat down while he quietly placed her on his legs and then held her there while asking Maester Luwin as politely as he could to continue the lesson.

Maester Luwin hadn't been happy about that. But Jon had promised she would be good for the time she was with them. When Jon had looked at her to prompt her agreement with an unspoken: "Isn't that right little sister," she'd nodded her head quickly. She did not want to be kicked out after managing to get in **and** procure such a comfortable seat.

She couldn't remember the lesson itself years later in the present, though it was likely material that Septa Mordane was covering again now that she was getting to be a young lady. But it was still one of her fondest early memories. One that if anyone had asked her she would've likely cited as helping Arya make up her mind about Jon being her favorite sibling.

And of course now it had spurred her even harder to figure out how to sneak her way into Jon's sickroom the past few days. To at least settle her churning stomach that had been uneasy ever since Sansa had come back from tending Jon alongside their lady mother with a frightened look in her blue eyes and nightmares that had her thrashing and screaming about demons before she jolted herself awake.

She thought Arya was a sound sleeper these days, recovering from her sickness and all that. And so she attempted to stifle herself when she realized what she was doing. But the truth was that Arya's head rested upon her pillow as lightly as it ever did. She simply found it easier to learn things others didn't want her to if they thought they could whisper them while she was sleeping.

She'd heard her mother and father discussing Jon the second night after Sansa and their mother's disastrous attempt to tend him. She kept still as they tried to calm Sansa, tried to get her back to sleep.

"I can't sleep, I just can't." She had whimpered to them, still trying to keep quiet so as not to wake her newly healed sister even as her voice thickened with tears.

"Every time I try, I see what that thing did to his eyes. And then I feel something watching me. Waiting for me to sleep before it…it…" Sansa interrupted herself with a dry sob. She heard one of her parents move and then Sansa's voice was muffled.

Her mother made general noises of sympathy and comfort as she simultaneously heard the covers of Sansa's bed to shift. "Why don't you go find Septa Mordane, she'll likely have a prayer that can help keep you safe." She suggested while Sansa kept emitting distressed noises as quietly as she thought she could manage while muffled into their lady mother's embrace.

_'Keep her safe from what?' _Arya wondered to herself, daring to crack her eyes the slightest bit open to see that her mother was gently getting Sansa to stand while her father was close at hand, obviously wanting to comfort his daughter but lacking the faintest idea where to start in such an unusual situation.

"Go now." Her mother gently prodded, kissing Sansa's forehead. Her sister shuffled out of the room, her shoulders stooped with exhaustion and her face lined with tension while only an occasional sniffle leaked out now.

As soon as she was gone from the room, her mother sat heavily on her sister's bed, her father sitting down beside her. They were silent for only a short time before her mother spoke again.

"Something has to be done Ned." She said quietly.

"I know Cat. But what can we do? Whatever Jon called upon to save Arya, it's undoubtedly responsible for his injuries. Soon we will not be able to convince Maester Luwin to keep from informing the Citadel. And when he does…" Her father trailed off ominously.

Arya felt her breathing get a little faster as she tried to figure out what they meant. Jon had healed her she knew. She had seen him breathe in the smoke that came out of her mouth during the fire in the Sept. But now it was apparently hurting him. Against her will, her eyes moistened. It was clear from this that Jon was being hurt by whatever was responsible for healing her.

But why? Why would it want to punish Jon when he had only wanted it to help her?

She saw her mother lean into her father's shoulder, drawing comfort from his presence. Arya recognized the gesture as one she herself had initiated with Jon before: when dealing with Sansa and Septa Mordane and her mother got to be too much for her.

They stood after some time had passed while Arya kept her breathing as even as she could, occasionally shifting her shoulder or her legs to give the impression of being deeply asleep. Her father moved toward the door while her mother made her way toward Arya's bed. She immediately shut her eyes completely, not willing to chance her mother seeing the small sliver of space between her eyelids that would allow her to observe what they were and had been doing. Her mother leaned over her, kissing her forehead. She smelled of something sweet but slightly smoked, as though she had been by a burning hearth while tending her brother.

Arya wasn't sure what to make of that.

Her mother bid a whispered "Sleep well Arya" before it sounded as though she was walking toward the doorway. As soon as the door shut, Arya cracked her eyes to see if her mother and father were gone yet. Seeing the oaken portal to her and Sansa's shared sleeping quarters firmly shut, Arya's eyes shot open as she threw off the covers. She quickly made her way to the door, listening at it before pushing it as gently but steadily as she could.

She knew from previous experience that the door creaked if it was opened both too slowly or too quickly. The very first time she and Jon had attempted to sneak down to the kitchens for some bread, Sansa had been woken up and tried to chase Arya back to sleep.

She moved hurriedly down the corridors, taking the path to Maester Luwin's chambers that was familiar to all of the Stark children whether through lessons with him or having him take care of the various ills that afflicted the residents of Winterfell; high and lowborn alike. The waning moon was reflecting through the few windows she passed by, presenting an eerie contrast to the few torches that were lit up here and there.

She moved ever onward, not willing to be separated from Jon when he was being hurt. She knew there was nothing she could do that Maester Luwin couldn't, but that didn't mean she couldn't be there for her brother. He had helped her get better. The least she could do was be by his side. It had been weeks since the Sept burning and her recovery, but still no one would allow her to see Jon. She had played with Rickon, she had explored with Bran and she had even managed to exert a modicum of effort whenever her mother prodded her to attend the lessons with Septa Mordane that were always so much more dull than whatever Jon and Robb happened to be learning from Ser Rodrik or Farlan or Father.

She had thought that if she followed her mother's word and behaved as well as she could, they would let her see her brother sooner. But it had not happened. Even now that he was injured and needed more hands tending to him, they would not allow either her or Sansa to help look after him. Sansa had frankly seemed grateful not to have to go back to tending Jon, but Arya was frustrated and worried about her sibling.

Whatever was going on was bad enough to give her sister nightmares and no one was telling any of them anything about how or what or why.

As she drew up to Maester Luwin's chambers, she listened at the door to see if he was here. She heard gentle snoring being emitted by someone inside, so she could only hope that meant he was in. As she crossed her fingers and hoped to herself that this would work, she knocked loudly on the door.

There was hardly a break in the snoring. Arya knew it was essential that he awaken and try to discover who was calling on him if the door was to open. She had discovered through her repeated attempts to see Jon that it was locked from the inside when he was out and that when he was in and unwilling to come out, the door was barred so that she could not push her way in.

So that meant she would have to be good with the timing of this. As soon as he looked to open the door, she would need to hide behind the door as it opened. After that…

As she knocked hard a second time, she abruptly realized she had not actually planned how she was going to get in if in fact he actually opened the door for her. As her mind started to race to think of something, she heard a snort from inside and a bleary voice call: "Who goes there?"

It was Maester Luwin alright. He was awake now. If she retreated now he would either go back to sleep or dismiss it as someone rethinking their decision to see him. There was nothing to be done now. She would simply have to do as Jon had taught her during their games of come into my castle and wing it.

She pounded upon the door a third time.

Maester Luwin called to ask who it was again. As her mind raced, Arya was struck by inspiration. Thinking of one of her mother's handmaidens, she tried to imitate her voice as best she could.

"Lady Sansa is having trouble sleeping again Maester. Lady Stark requests that you give her something to help her." She said, keeping it brief so that she had less chance of being recognized even in the older man's half asleep state.

"Where is she?" She heard from inside.

"She sent her to see the Septa Maester. Shall I tell them you'll be coming?" She inquired, crossing her fingers that he would say yes.

"Yes, yes. Let her know not to leave the Septa's side so I can get to her." He answered distractedly as Arya heard the clink of jars and the shuffling of papers.

"Yes Maester." She answered just behind the door should swing toward the wall where it would open. Now as long as he didn't look behind the door as he left, she might be able to slip past him into the chamber.

She heard him coming closer. She held her breath as she tried to make herself as flat against the wall as she could, the way Bran had showed her to when inching their way across ledges. The door opened, coming closer and closer to her face as Maester Luwin emerged.

She closed her eyes as it came closer. She hoped and prayed that it wouldn't squish her and so reveal her where she stood before she could see her brother. To her relief, she felt it push into her nose a bit before it stopped. She opened her eyes quickly as Maester Luwin started to walk past her, seemingly in a half awake daze. She knew an opportunity when she saw it.

She darted around the edge of the door and made her way inside the Maester's quarters as quickly and quietly as she could. She moved toward the room housing Jon even as she heard Maester Luwin turn around, muttering softly under his breath.

She opened Jon's door only as big a crack as she needed to slip inside before quickly pulling it shut behind her. As she leaned on the wall immediately adjacent to the door, she heard the door to the outside room shut completely followed shortly by a rattle of metal as she guessed Maester Luwin was locking it behind him.

As her eyes adjusted to the dim light of Jon's room, she at last noticed the heat that came close to sweltering. She saw there was no visible heat source aside from the candles that burned brightly around the room. And at last she took in Jon's form on the bed.

The first thing she noticed was the stillness of his body. If she hadn't known her mother and father would never have been able to lie to them this long about it, she would've sworn they were keeping a corpse beneath the sheets. The second thing she noticed as she drew closer was that the heat in the room seemed to be centered on Jon himself. She grew alarmed at that, especially when she catalogued the heavy bandages over his eyes that appeared to have some dried blood crusting on the bottom edges of it. She hurried over to his side, her left hand find his right above the blanket.

She winced from the searing heat his flesh gave off even as her eyes trained themselves on his chest to reassure herself that she could see it rise and fall with the steadiness that meant he was still breathing one more moment.

She breathed deeply, bowing her head and closing her eyes as she allowed tears to well in them. It was starting to sink in now, just how badly off he was by whatever he had done to help her. She didn't know who to pray to. The Old Gods? The New Gods? The Unknown Power Jon had invoked? The Old Gods kept mostly to the forest to her mind. The New Gods had just seen their place of worship burned down. The Unknown was the one responsible for hurting Jon, so that was right out as well. Which left what?

Arya prayed to Jon, prayed that he would hear her silent plea. Prayed that he would listen to her as he always had. Prayed that he would feel her there and know that he needed to come back.

_'Please Jon.'_ She prayed without words. _'Please wake up. I haven't gotten to say thank you yet. I still need to thank you.' _Her mother and father had always said that it was rude not to thank someone when they did something for you. Jon had to wake up so he could hear her say it to him.

As she drifted into sleep in the chair by his side, she squeezed his hand in hers. She would stay by his bed and wait for him as long as it took. Just as he would do for her.

An hour later, his hand weakly squeezed back while she slept.

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><p>Author's Note: My thanks to all of you who have supported this endevour! Hope this chapter was up to standards! Be sure to leave a review and let me know eh? :)<p> 


	8. Jon IV

Jon had been walking for such a long time now. His empty eye sockets were still throbbing, his body was so far past the brink of exhaustion that it was practically numb and his spirit was feeling worn from constantly maintaining the flames that engulfed both of his hands and reigniting them when they occasionally sputtered out. But still he continued following the path. Telling himself with each step forward that with this last test it would be over.

_'One way or another.'_ His subconscious chimed in. Jon couldn't deny the truth of the statement. Though he didn't like to think about the implications of failure.

Still, at least he still had only this one test remaining. Even if he had to wonder how he was going to function with only his sense of fires and his ears to guide him through the real world.

Without warning, the path ended. Jon's improved hearing could hear something forming. Even with his newfound sense of heat and flame, he could barely make out what it was. He flared the fires in his hands to create both a brighter source of heat and a hot breeze that might tell him what the area around him was becoming. As far as his functional senses could tell, it was a long grand hall with columns that lined him on either side. But there was always something just beyond the range of his fires that was moving.

He did not feel clothes form themselves on his body as it had the previous two tests. The lack of any protection and the knowledge of the dark presence put his nerves on edge. Whatever the thing was, it always managed to keep just beyond the reach of his mundane and extra senses. It acted as though it knew he was looking for it. Jon moved behind the closest column on his right, holding his flickering palms to the surface. As the column heated up on his bare back, he heard the thing shifting all around him.

It sounded like nothing either animal or human. It was more of a dark mass that radiated malice and sounded akin to some cordlike material being dragged across the floor. Jon decided he had to flare his hands again to keep it away.

As he did, there was a sharp crack followed by a stinging stripe of pain across his chest. He cried out as a strange series of someone else's memories flashed across his mind's eye.

_A small urchin shown no kindness by the passing knights and lordlings. As rain fell on his head and his stomach gnawed at him, he hates these pompous cunts who sleep in their houses of stone and iron that looked down upon people like him and didn't give a flying rat's arse cheek about them unless it affected their lordship's comfortable lifestyle._

Jon's left knee hit the stone floor as he held his burning hands to his head in an effort to soothe the pain in his empty sockets and his mind from the foreign images. There was a shift in the darkness. He tried to roll to the side, but it still managed to graze his shoulder.

_A highborn young woman raucously stripped and manhandled on what was meant to be the most wonderful night of her life. As she was shoved unceremoniously into the room by the rowdy crowd, she nervously places herself on the bed to await the man she has been arranged to marry. When her husband arrives he is drunk, though unfortunately still able to perform the act. He pushes in without a care as she stifles her cries of pain and discomfort. As he falls asleep atop her, his breath smelling of whiskey while her loins and her pride ache, she hates this society that treats her as a piece of meat to be bought at the highest price only so long as she's fresh enough._

His brain was starting to pound and the whispers were getting stronger. They spoke of death. Of fairness. Of justice. Of vengeance. All of these things and more they spoke. Jon managed to slide away as the next whip strike impacted the tile he'd just been, the stone floor audibly cracking in response to the force behind it.

He tried desperately to get a sense as to what these things could be a part of and how they moved. But before he could even begin to figure it out, another sharp crack echoed as another strike landed on the broken ribs on his left side.

_A bannerman who dared speak his mind. He watches as the banner that had once belonged to a kind well-meaning lord pass to the power-hungry war-mongering hands of his ego-obsessed whelp. He sees the soldiers who slaughter his family without question or humanity. And as he dies, he hates that there is no justice to be had that is not found at the point of a sword. And more often than not, the greatest monsters are also the ones who possess the least hesitation in wielding a blade._

Jon felt his temper rise to the surface. What is the point in showing him these images, these things he can do nothing about? To show him that the world is not inherently just? He had known that from the moment he learned what the word bastard meant.

This time, he heard it before it came. He leaned his body so that it is partway coiled around the column. The sting of the impact cracked where his chest would've been as the displaced air blew mightily in his face. He flared the fire in his right hand at the thing, trying to light it up. All that resulted was an angry shriek from inside the shadows as it cracked yet another whip like appendage across his open palm, cutting him almost to the bone.

_A sellsword hired to supplement some highborn prick's limited forces. As he wanders the bloody carnage that is always the aftermath when the highborn take their games of intrigue too far yet again and knows he will be derogatively looked down upon by the so called knights and lords without whom this death and destruction would not exist, he hates that being an honest vulture is considered less honorable than a braying ass who drapes themselves in finery and then call themselves a noble stallion._

Jon tried to scramble out of the way of the next strike as he cradled his right hand to his chest, relying almost entirely on his ears now since the darkness had proven all but impenetrable to his fire. The whip cracked across his back, opening the skin from left shoulder to right hip. The shock of the sudden strike causes him to fall forward, his left hand only just managing to catch him before his face kissed the floor.

_A bastard son of a noble lord. As he hears almost every person of his noble father's household in and out of his hearing remark at one time or another how lucky he is that his father took him in at all, he hates the trueborn family that always looks to him as an outsider. He hates the household that calls him unnatural because of his father's weakness. He hates that he has no other family that he can turn to so that he may leave these wolves who would leave him to die alone in the cold without hesitation were it not for his highborn sire's half-measure shows of favor and affection._

Jon cannot deny he has felt that hatred before. That he has felt so strongly against Robb, against Lady Catelyn, against even his father Lord Eddard Stark. As he admits that, the darkness encroaches further. But he also feels the fires of his hands become drawn to the darkness around him, showing him a way of repulsing them at last.

As Jon let go of the emotional restraints he had placed upon himself, the fire in his hands flared again. Without his eyes, he couldn't see that it had changed color to suit the fuel that fed it: dark and grey. The color of smoke and ash, the utter blackness of the central flames around his palms made it seem as though they are shrouded in the surrounding shadows.

As another extension of the darkness cracked toward him, he abruptly pivoted his body sideways so that the whip would hit the ground instead. Before it could retreat again, he brought his left foot down on the tip of it. His right hand rises toward the source his sense of the shadow had discerned before he let a blast of his darkfire loose.

_A poor man turned brigand. As he and his men are caught poaching simply to feed their families, they are sentenced to execution. As he awaits his turn with the headsman, he discovers a newfound hatred for these high-born cockholes that don't give a damn who starves so long as they get what they want. As the blade cleaves his head from his neck, he curses their name and the day they believed themselves so much better than all the rest simply by virtue of their being born into the world._

He felt a visceral satisfaction at the squealing he heard from the thing and heard it scuttle backward in a clear retreat even as the tentacle beneath his foot dissolved into nothing. Jon let loose another blast even as it scampered, allowing his own rage and hatred to dictate his power. He heard them strike again and again. Just as he heard that thing squeal in pain and fright each time. As he exorcises the memories of hatred, apathy and anger, Jon feels the flames grow stronger and stronger: their fuel source continually renewed through his reliving the memories and dredging up the feelings.

And then the whips returned.

They were much faster now while still almost impossible to predict, but Jon dug deep within himself to find those resentfully destructive thoughts that he'd kept firmly in check ever since he'd come to the conclusion that Winterfell as a whole would just as soon pretend he didn't exist. He continued hurting and injuring it with each movement and blast, his pride and his ever-growing wrath forcing him to keep up the onslaught regardless of the cost.

Yet for all the times he struck at the shadows the whiplike extensions would strike him in turn, cutting deeply enough to draw blood and expose muscle and bone. And each vision it presented would serve only to feed his flames and thus feed the whips in turn.

_A young slave who enters the grave having never known freedom. A grieving parent whose children are struck down by illness and war one by one until only they are left. A maester who serves the assassins of his lord because of his order's oath of neutrality. All of these and more flash as the whips crack across his skin, beating down his will to continue on even as he tries to rally himself._

Jon screamed in impotent fury as he unleashed his accumulated rage and darkfire in one humongous blast radiating outward from his body. It succeeded in driving back the beast. But at the cost of destroying and weakening the columns lining the place that were nearby him. He fell to his hands and knees, his breathing coming in heavy pants as he felt his energy desert him.

Jon thought he would feel triumphant at driving the darkness away. Instead, he felt emotionally empty. He had relieved so many of the worst thoughts he had ever had cross his mind. Forced himself to experience numerous others in the process. And for what? All too soon, he knows the answer. For nothing. And so he begins to despair. For the creature is returned. And his newfound sense of the shadows tells him truthfully that it is stronger than ever.

The voices are all perfectly clear now; their combined contradicting noises a cacophony that could only be imagined in the rankest pits of the seven hells. A figure stepped out of the darkness, the countless extensions writhing off it like sentient tendrils of death. As it approached, Jon heard its voice.

He supposed it was meant to sound like Lady Catelyn. But yet, it clearly wasn't Lady Catelyn. Where Lady Stark's voice could be gentle or harsh as needed, it was always fairly pleasant to listen to. This sounded as though a serpent had taken control of Lady Stark's tongue and made no secret of what a forked tongue it had.

"So, have you at last learned the truth of yourself now bastard?" It hissed angrily, right hand roughly grabbing his chin.

Before he could respond, two more tendrils wrapped around his prone arms before pulling them in each direction. They pulled until it felt like they would rip them from their sockets. When his arms were at their limit, the tendrils grew spikes that stabbed directly into them from every angle the tendrils touched his skin.

Jon was too tired to scream anymore. He could sense the shadows creeping further and further into his blood, corrupting him. Too late, he realized what had happened. By giving into his worst impulses, he had made it easier for this thing to take control of him. And now, he was going to become something else. Something twisted. Something angry. Something born of darkness. The poisonous shadows continued to creep through his veins, causing the previously coherent memories and visions to become garbled and chaotic, overwhelming his already taxed mind.

"Hush little baby." She cooed in a sick parody of the soothing tone Lady Catelyn had used to calm her trueborn children when they had been babes. "Soon enough it will all be over. Embrace the shadows of your fire, and never again will you be alone."

It was a tempting thought. Jon could feel his arms growing numb as the poison spread to the rest of his body. Coming all this way, only to fail because he wouldn't let go of his own hatred…

_'Arya will never forgive me.'_ He reflected, his sense of fire watching with a profound sadness as it began to encroach on his heart. As he thought of his little sister however, the fire in his heart flared for a moment, driving back the shadows a few inches.

Hope flared inside him, causing the fire's strength to grow. Despite the visions and the shouting that echoed from every part of the shadows, he concentrated as hard as he could on his memories of Arya. How she had sought him out for games she could play. How she would smile for him when he warned her not to tell Sansa about another of their secret adventures around Winterfell.

"What do you think you're doing?! Stop it!" The shadowy Catelyn shouted, her grip on his jaw tightening. He ignored her as he thought of his other siblings as well.

He thought of Bran. Of his boundless curiosity. Of his natural inclination to explore. Of his laughter when he joined him and Arya in finding entertainment for themselves in Winterfell.

He thought of Robb. Of his willingness to embrace him as a brother despite his low birth status. Of his vocally desiring that Jon be treated as one of the family whenever Lady Catelyn acted too overtly toward him. Of his ability to express so much with a simple hand on the shoulder.

He thought of Sansa. Of her unwillingness to disrespect him despite his bastard status. Of her speaking to him of the minds of women and girls without judgment nor lies when he asked her advice. Of her inherently gentle nature that lent her a certain delicacy in every movement.

With each memory of laughter, of happiness, of love, his flames grew stronger. The tendrils and the shadows sought to escape the newfound bright blue fires. Before the whiplike things could leave his arms, he grabbed them with his hands held them fast as he embraced the creature that was pretending to be Lady Catelyn.

He willed the flames to spread their joy in the darkness that so desperately needed illumination. Without question they began to consume everything that surrounded them. Pillar and shadow and creature alike. The Lady Catelyn struggled in his arms as the fires of his happy memories spread to her body.

"No, no! Your shadows are strong! Why have you rejected them?! They will follow you no matter where you go!" She shouted desperately, her hands attempting to reach past his bear hold on her to strangle him in a last ditch effort at preventing the inevitable.

He did not respond to her. The warmth of the love his siblings had shown him was enough to drive away the darkness and the despair for now. However, he knew she was right. So long as there was a fire to illuminate the darkness, the shadows would always return.

The trick was not to seek the emptiness of the places without light, so as to avoid being burned. But to instead seek the horizon for the coming of a new dawn that drove away that starless night. He internally acknowledged that so long as he could feel passion, he would always be capable of holding hatred and rage in his heart. But that did not mean he had to define himself by it.

The creature let out one last hideous screech before the fires returned to Jon, burning him away from all of this. It was a soothing burn: like the last of the deadwood being consumed so that the forest would not choke itself on its own accumulated debris. Instead leaving it free to create new life and see new growth.

As the creature disappeared from his arms, another body replaced it. It was an adult female, at least half a head taller than he was. As her arms encircled him, he felt as if he were a small child coming home to a mother's embrace after a very long day.

His eyelids opened fitfully as he slowly registered that his body was now whole and unmarred. He gasped in astonishment as he pulled away slightly from the mystery woman only to look into a face that was unmistakably Stark in its solemn longness, dark hair and distinct grey eyes.

His first thought was that the imitation Lady Catelyn had been replaced by a grown version of Arya. He had always imagined the little sister Sansa's friends snidely called Horseface would one day grow to be more beautiful than them all. His thought immediately following was that he was glad to have been proven right.

His eyes raked up and down her form. She was dressed in a simple combination of leather riding pants and woolen jerkin, her dainty feet bare. Her dark hair came down to the middle of her shoulder blades in waves that emphasized the roundness of her face and the structure of her graceful arms. Jon gulped in his mind. She was by far one of the most attractive woman he had ever seen. His mind told him that this couldn't be Arya, only a Stark woman who looked like her. But if she was of obvious Stark blood, the only other female Stark who had been close to Lady Catelyn's age would've been Lord Eddard's sister Lyanna. The Stark that Arya had been whispered to resemble before.

Her eyes drank him in, a happiness in her eyes that made her seem to radiate an inner light that he couldn't resist smiling in the face of. She embraced him again, pressing his face into her chest as her right hand rested on his back and her left hand soothingly stroked his hair.

"I could never stop looking at you my baby boy." She whispered, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head.

Even as his arms had once again embraced this woman, he pulled back abruptly to really look at her. His eyes felt comically wide, yet he couldn't bring himself to care about that. If she had called him son, then that meant…

"Mother?" He whispered, not caring if he sounded a young child again.

Tears sprang to the corners of her eyes as she nodded. "Yes little Jon." She answered.

He threw himself into her arms again, not resisting his urge to cry into her tunic. Years of wondering, of hoping, of dreaming. Even if this was not real, even if she was dead, he didn't care. He felt he was justified in being selfish and wanting this to himself even if it meant he had lost Lord Eddard as his father and his siblings as his brothers and sisters.

Jon didn't know nor care how long they had stood there: Mother and Son simply holding each other in this in-between place as they had never been allowed in life. Eventually they drew apart with extreme reluctance.

"I suppose you have questions?" She asked him, left hand wiping at her watery eyes just like Arya would when she didn't want anyone to know she had been crying.

"You suppose rightly." Jon answered, not bothering to hide his own shining eyes.

"Where should I start?" She asked, sitting on the ground that had become the clearing in the Godswood at Winterfell. She patted the ground beside her in invitation.

"The beginning would be good." Jon answered, taking her up on her offer without hesitation. As he sat down on her left side, her arm rested across the back of his shoulders. He could feel her smile into his hair as she kissed his head again while he leaned into her solid warmth. "If you're my mother, than Lord Stark is not my father?"

"No Little Jon. The Stark family has never been one to practice Targaryen traditions." She said. "Your father is the one who brought you here."

"The voice in the flames?" He asked, honestly surprised and unsure how to feel about the revelation. He had thought perhaps it was an unknown power that had taken an interest in him for some purpose or other, but to think that it was his father. It changed everything about what had just happened to Jon yet at the same time changed nothing about it at all. Because unless he could talk to this hitherto unknown sire himself, he couldn't even begin to ponder all the possible reasons and justifications behind all of this.

"That is often the stand-in description mortals use until they can decide what they wish to call us." A male voice answered from in front of him, a distinctly mischievous tone to his words.

Jon jolted where he sat, eyes locking on the figure who hadn't been there a moment before when he and his mother had settled under this imaginary Godswood. He instinctively tried to move in front of his mother but her arm held him fast to her side even as she chuckled to herself at his attempt to protect her while the man gave an appraising look paired with an enigmatic smile.

"Well met young spark." The man said. Jon could hear the faint whispers of other voices underlying his words, the conflicting undertones and the odd contrast they made to any given voice by now a very familiar sound to his ears.

Jon's eyes focused intensely on the man once this mystical figure inadvertently confirmed his identity to him, Lyanna Stark's proclamation that this person was his father acting to increase his interest. Jon had always known he was a Stark even if he was a bastard. Now that he knew it was mainly his mother he took after, he couldn't help but be curious as to what he might've gained from his sire.

As he came closer, Jon saw that his father was tall: likely a small amount taller than Lord Stark at just a bit over six feet. His hair was a dark grey that reminded Jon of the ash that gathered by the cooling embers in guttered fireplaces before the household servants had managed to light a new one. His skin was bronzed and weathered, with some visible scars on his fingers and forearms as though he worked with his hands for a living. His tunic and his pants were darker in color, with reddish undercurrents that highlighted the tone of his muscles and simultaneously made him seem both garish and dangerous. Much as the most colorful creature is often the most whimsical or the most deadly, as Maester Luwin would say.

His eyes however distinctly gave him away as being inhuman. They were almost reptilian in appearance: narrower than most men with amber where most humans had white and pitch black pupils that possessed the beginnings of slits at the top and bottom with only a small rounding in the center instead of just circles inside of a darkish brown iris that was closer in color to the pupils than anything else Jon had ever remembered seeing from another person.

Jon couldn't help the thought that crossed his mind at that moment.

_'He looks like a dragon trying to play dress up as a human without any idea how much he shows through.'_

As his father came closer to the Godswood, he knelt in a gesture of respect and to be at around level with his own and his mother's heads.

"The young pups are kind indeed to allow you the use of their image for this meeting dear one." He murmured dryly as his right hand reached out to touch the ground, fingers splayed to seemingly get a feel for the grass.

"Only for a short time my Wicker Man." She laughed in acknowledgement.

Jon looked at his mother akenstance, unsure of how to inquire about the nickname for what was apparently a supernatural entity powerful enough to sire children with a human woman. Or if he honestly wanted to know.

"When we hinted at our shell's abilities to your mother, she thought it made us be as though we were made of candle wicks to become enflamed so easily." His father explained while smiling, having clearly caught the confusion in Jon's expression. He turned his head to look directly in his mother's eyes. "Though we have always so enjoyed it when you use our mortal name."

"By your leave R'hllor." She nodded, kissing Jon's forehead again. Jon was still unsure how to deal with the being in front of him, especially since the name she just used for him felt familiar for some reason. His mother didn't seem concerned however, her arms still firmly attached to Jon's shoulder as though if she had her way, they'd be here for as long as she could have them.

Rather like Arya the few times she had actually wanted to just be held and be still with him, Jon absentmindedly reflected. His little sister really was a lot more like her aunt than he had known.

"Lord…R'hllor?" Jon stated tentatively, feeling unsure about confronting this being of obvious power and unknown intentions about the tests he had recently endured. He knew he must, if only so he could know their context and so see what his father thought of him. But it didn't lessen his trepidation any.

"Yes young spark?" The man asked, now sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of them, his smile unfazed as his eyes alighted on Jon as though he too was taking in his child's appearance for the first time.

"Why did I have to undergo those tests?" He asked outright. Jon knew there was probably a better way to ask that question. But he couldn't think of it here and so would just have to be forthright and hope that if his father was not the same with him, that his mother at least would be able to shed a bit more light on his motivations and thoughts.

**His** mother. **His** father. Though he had only just discovered the truth of who they were, Jon felt he could never be tired of that feeling that came from knowing. From being sure enough to call them his own even if it meant that he could no longer call himself brother to Robb, Sansa, Bran, Arya or Rickon.

"Your power has been awake for some time now young spark," R'hllor began explaining. "But in the House of Stars, you did not have the control or the understanding to do what was necessary without destroying yourself. So we did what any concerned parent would do. We showed you the way. And then set you the task of discovering how to do so for yourself."

"But how-" Jon started, only to have his father interrupt him.

"To fully awaken and then direct the power of the flames child, one must understand every aspect of them. Good and ill alike. Else their wielder shall only ever hold incomplete knowledge of their workings. And that young spark, can be even more dangerous than ignorance alone." R'hllor softly told him.

"We have seen it far too often where some foolish tender of the light thinks only of the danger or only of the benefit and so does not use it to full effect. Great and ignoble similarly." His father continued. "Did you not find it so when you called the fire to your hand?"

Jon recalled how he had warmed his hand by only thinking of the positive sides of fires. How it was only once he remembered the pain and the danger and had as complete a picture of the flames as he could that he could call it to his hand.

"Yes." Jon answered simply, waiting to see where his father was leading.

"And did the tests grant you a greater understanding of yourself?" R'hllor continued as Lyanna continued holding him at her side.

"Yes." Jon answered again, thinking to his imagined Robb, his animal instincts and his twisted reflection of Lady Catelyn.

Confronting Robb had allowed him to acknowledge his mixed feelings on being denied a place in the line of responsibility for the North simply because of his birth. It would take him some time to truly accept the idea the fight had planted in his head, but it was worth exploring what else he could be outside the confines of Winterfell.

Being pushed to the brink of death by his most basic instincts had forced him to understand that while an enemy could be destroyed with such force if he simply gave into that desire to dominate and to annihilate them, it was the ability to direct and focus that kind of ferocity that made it into a truly formidable weapon in any arsenal.

And his use of multiple types of fire against the accumulation of most everything negative he had known to be in the world had allowed him not only to vent his own demons against it, but shown him that his love and compassion could always overpower that darkness if he was willing to endure the hardship it took to reach it.

He shivered a bit as he recalled the phantom whips that had stripped him crimson only a short time ago.

Lyanna kissed the top of his head again in a gesture of motherly reassurance.

"Good." R'hllor stated with obvious approval. "Now you are ready to begin your lifelong journey."

"My what?!" A startled Jon exclaimed.

"For all your life, you will need to constantly work at improving your control over your powers. Do you imagine you will be satisfied with keeping them a secret, only using them to occasionally cook your meat or light a hearth?" R'hllor asked, eyes twinkling in amusement.

Jon had to admit that he did not see himself not using these powers, if only because of the potential they represented as a whole.

"So what then has to happen?" Jon asked, looking from his mother to his father and back again.

"As of now, you are not ready to wield them openly." His father said bluntly. "You have made progress young spark, but you are not where you must be if you are to defend yourself from the ills of the closed world."

"Where are you known Lord R'hllor?" Jon asked, thinking he might be able to learn more of his abilities and the beliefs of those who knew of his father.

"Your father is worshiped mostly across the Narrow Sea Little Jon." His mother told him. "But unless you intend to leave everything in Westeros behind, I would not suggest it."

"What, why?" Jon asked. "Would I not be able to return?" He didn't understand. Surely it was not so unusual for a bastard to seek to make his fortune outside of the Seven Kingdoms. Why then was it such a bad idea for him to do so under similar pretext?

"Because of our descendants that live across the water in the lands of shadowed sun." R'hllor answered.

"What your father means is that the last Targaryans are across the Narrow Sea as well." Lyanna interjected, rolling her eyes at Jon's father. "If you go across the sea: it will be assumed that Ned sent you for his reasons regarding them, not that you are going for your own."

"Well, then do I go south?" Jon asked. "If you said mostly across the Narrow Sea. Does that mean I could go there to find places of worship for him and learn there?"

"If you would be unsafe seeking our origin across the sea far away from your enemies, what makes you think you will be safer placing yourself upon their plate and offering yourself for the meal?" R'hllor asked dryly.

"Well, all that leaves is the Wall or the North." Jon answered him. "Somehow I don't think the Night's Watch will be too happy to let me go to the North to train powers I barely understand myself. And I imagine the wildlings will be even less sympathetic than that."

"Which means you must stay here in the North." Lyanna said. "But you must strike out on your own. Learn to use your powers outside of Winterfell where you can be easily found and where the other Houses could learn of you if you make one mistaken flare."

"While your mother does not wish her child to sever his ties to his remaining family guiding her decision, she is right to suggest this. But you must not allow your mortal family to know of your plans." R'hllor stipulated, his voice changing from youthful to rough and gritty within the time it took him to speak the sentence.

His mother was visibly unhappy about that.

"Do you imagine Ned would put Jon in danger R'hllor? He has tried to keep him safe all these years even thinking that he's a Blackfyre!"

"And yet your brother cannot force others to adhere to his honor dear one." R'hllor responded, his expression barely changing from the thin smile it had slid into during the discussion of what Jon was to do now. "If the young spark is to become a young blaze, he must learn to seek his own fuel."

"Outside of Winterfell, he's in danger! The hill clans, the other houses of the North, the bandits, the smallfolk, the animals! He has some training but he is still a boy of fourteen!" She objected, her left hand reflexively gripping Jon's shoulder.

"That will not matter to his enemies." Was all his father had to say.

"I'll do it." Jon resolved quietly, startling both of them with a small jolt. His mother started to say something, but he quickly cut her off before he could lose his nerve to say this.

"I…I think this is for the best mother." Jon said, his insides twisting a bit at the thought of leaving Winterfell like this, but his memory of his duel with Robb telling him that sort of feeling was the kind he should be trying to overcome. "I need to find who I am outside of Winterfell's safety. Unless I go to the far North beyond the wall, this is the best way to do it."

As she looked from her son to her child's father, Jon could see the wheels turning in her head, could almost feel her disagreement with his decision. But he also saw conflict in her eyes, as well as pain. He imagined the conflict was feeling that Jon was siding with the father who had placed him in these tests instead of her, but what pain could she feel at disagreeing with him?

"She wanted you young spark." R'hllor quietly spoke, causing Jon to look at him with narrowed eyes at this apparent non-sequitur. "Your mother loved you even before you were born. She has been in this place inside of us for so long, hoping against hope that she would be able to see you. To speak to you. And now that she can again, she finds you talking of leaving the safety of her brother's keep to venture into the unknown."

Jon pondered that thought, asking absently: "How would you know this?"

R'hllor's smile turned brittle in the blink of an eye.

"We are not the first nor the last. We are but the next in a line that stretches endlessly from the original abyss heading towards the final horizon with naught but the comfort of the voices of those who have been for comfort."

The god paused.

"We are called the Many Faced God for a reason child."

The three present were silent as the branches above them whispered for a moment in a non-existent breeze. The shadows lengthened as they sat there.

"Your time of allowance here is coming to an end young spark." R'hllor said, slowly standing even as he bowed his head toward the Godswood.

Jon and his mother began to reluctantly stand as well.

"If ever you should seek our voice, hold the heat of your soul forth to the fires and speak." He advised before turning and walking away. As he left, Jon thought he saw a faint outline of a tattered belt flow behind him much like the dragging tail of a lizard.

"Tell your uncle to let Arya learn a bit of horsemanship, see if she takes after me in more than just looks." She joked, face brightening for a moment before her expression grew serious again.

"And please remember this Little Jon." His mother said as the shadows grew longer and a wind started to pick up. She kissed his brow one more time as her eyes grew misty at their imminent parting. "No matter what the world may bring: You are my precious son. And I will always love you."

"I love you too Mother." He said, his face muffled in her jerkin as he tried to hold onto this feeling of holding her. Of being with her as he would never be allowed in waking life.

"Time to go back." She said, giving his shoulders a gentle shove as the ground beneath him faded away. The last thing he saw before he fell through darkness was her watery smile.

He fell for a long time.

As he felt was about to reach some kind of bottom, he jerked awake with a sharp gasp. He immediately noted the wrappings that covered his eyes. Yet he found that if he concentrated, he could look over to see a small human form emitting heat from its curled form taking up a chair by his bedside like a dozing kitten.

He sniffed the air, detecting a faint scent of Winterfell's grounds mixed with some faint hints of more flowery scents he had come to associate with Sansa. Yet the form was too small to be her, leaving only one option for who it could be. He reached out with his right hand to ruffle the sleeping head of what he believed was Arya. As he moved his palm rapidly around in her bedraggled hair, she swiped at his hand with sloppy half-asleep movements.

"Quit it Jon." She mumbled.

"As you wish little sister." He answered, a grin forming on his face as her voice gave her away. It was so good to be back in this world thought as he mentally counted to see how much time it would take. He didn't have long to wait.

He heard her head shoot up and saw though the shifting of her body's outline as it swiveled to lock onto him.

"Jon?" She whispered, her tone plainly telling that she couldn't decide whether she was still dreaming or not.

He opened his arms. Even with bracing his back, she managed to knock him flat down to the bed as she shot into his arms faster than a crossbow bolt. Her arms were squeezing him so tight that he knew if his ribs had been in any way injured, she would've broken them all over again with her steel grip.

She hugged the breath out of him for a few minutes before letting go and having her fists begin impacting his chest. As his hands caught her wrists after a few clumsy misses, he tried to have her look at him so she could say what she meant to say.

Her face turned upward to face him as her body heat joined with his own even through the covers. When she spoke, her voice was blazing with a multitude of unnamable emotions.

"Don't you ever ever **ever** scare me like that again." She commanded as she gently lay her head on his chest over his beating heart.

"I will do what I can." He answered honestly, drawing her into a soft embrace once more. She curled up against him as she had when she had still been a babe, plainly happy to have him back again.

The door opened to reveal a distinctly male and female form. The male one uttered a soft oath of: "By the gods!" in Maester Luwin's voice while the poultices and bandages slipped from what he assumed by extension to be Lady Catelyn's suddenly nerveless fingers.

"I think someone should fetch Lord Stark. I have much to discuss with him." Jon remarked.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: So comes an end to Jon's initial trials! My thanks to all seven Guests who were kind enough to leave a review as well as Caelleh, Quindecim, falseproffitt, Charybde, thesnakesofthesouth, Legend 3881, and BicolourRaptor. You guys being good enough to leave feedback has really given me the push to keep going with this story and to keep the quality as high as I can. I sincerely hope this chapter doesn't disappoint; be sure to let me know what you all think! :)<p> 


	9. Eddard I

Eddard Stark hadn't been sure what to expect when Jon had awoken.

He had looked to the Old Gods for guidance in this matter, now that he had no idea what was true regarding the anomalous Stark of Winterfell anymore. No answer presented itself before the chambermaid Catelyn had sent informed him that Jon was awake and asking for him.

When he had discovered Lyanna on that bloodstained bed, he had honored the promise he'd made to her.

He'd suspected at first that the boy was the result of an affair between Lyanna and the Crown Prince, making him Rhaegar Targaryan's bastard son. But his exclusively Stark coloring had thrown that into question in his mind. He still didn't dare tell Robert about Lyanna's only child though. For what Robert learned would inevitably spread to the rest of the seven kingdoms the first time his old friend began his third goblet. And while he himself had been reasonably sure of Jon's non-Targaryan parentage, he was not willing to chance the Lannisters, Tyrells, Martells, Greyjoys, Baratheons and countless other houses major and minor all coming to the same conclusion. So he claimed the boy for his own, assured of Howland Reed's silence regarding the circumstances. What did his honor matter if it meant keeping the promise he'd made to his dying sister?

As Jon had grown, Eddard had agonized constantly over when/how to tell the boy. But where to start to explain something like that when he wasn't even sure who Lyanna had taken to her bed? He loved the boy like his own son, but he knew he could never legitimize him without the story he had concocted falling apart at the seams. And while he believed Jon to be mature for his age that did not mean he was willing to trust him with such a dire and precarious secret.

He could also never tell Cat the truth. His wife was many things to his mind. A loving mother, a devoted lady, a pious woman. But a convincing actress was not one of them. If he was to carry on the charade that Jon Snow was his illegitimate son, he had to maintain that story even to his wife and his children. Yet now…

When he had entered Jon's sickroom, he had been shocked to see the boy looking healthier than ever despite the bandages that covered his eyes and his demeanor making him appear older than his fourteen years of age.

His lady wife stood by the doorway as Arya was curled into Jon's chest while the recently recovered boy held her in his arms under Maester Luwin's watchful gaze by the opposite wall, eyes very obviously cataloguing every movement of his adopted son's body.

Eddard noticed that despite his silence in entering the room via already opened door, only Jon had fixed his covered eyes firmly on him, Cat and Luwin only seeing him when they looked to follow Jon's line of non-existent vision. Unsure of where they were supposed to go from here, Ned said the first thing that came to mind.

"I am glad to find you whole again Jon." He greeted, walking toward the boy's bed.

Jon flashed a brief smile at him before he looked down at Arya. Cat had given a respectful curtsey as befitted his station while Arya had only turned her head and chirped a brief greeting at Eddard before burying her head in Jon's chest again. She had not even bothered to move her arms from their position around his nephew's sides.

Jon spoke to the younger girl. "I need you to give me some alone time with our lord father." He prodded, rubbing her back soothingly as he did so.

She shook her head without looking at anyone. "I won't interrupt." She preemptively countered before anyone could speak up.

"I know you wouldn't." Jon said, right hand ruffling her hair. "But I need to explain everything that happened in the Sept in addition to why. And unless the Lord of Winterfell permits it, I cannot in good conscience speak of it with others before I talk to him about the matter."

Eddard was on guard now. Very rarely had Jon used his title when referring to him. When he did, it was generally because he was distressed about something and using highborn protocol to create emotional distance between himself and the matter in question.

"Can't you at least look at me when you say that Jon?" Arya asked quietly.

Catelyn inadvertently drew a sharp breath as her youngest looked up at Jon's face beseechingly. Jon had never been able to say no to Arya, especially not when he looked her in the eyes. But what would he say now that his eyes were gone? If Arya was to see that-

"As you wish little sister." Jon answered. "But I'll need you to remove the bandages for me." He continued, leaning his head down so their brows were touching while Arya's hands moved up to begin undoing the bandages.

"Stop Jon!" Mikhal exclaimed, moving toward them. "Your eyes-"

"My eyes are fine Maester Luwin." Jon firmly cut off, his form unmoving from his position in front of the youngest Stark girl. For a moment, Ned thought he sounded like his brother Brandon when he was not going to brook any more argument about whether or not he could use his leg after falling from the tree. Though Eddard was fairly sure gouged eyes were somewhat more severe than a broken leg.

By this time, Arya's nimble fingers had undone the bandages in the back and begun pulling them off. Catelyn had strode forward to Jon's bedside now, her hand flashing out to keep the bandaging in place.

"Mother!" Arya exclaimed, upset that Cat was apparently stopping her from removing the bandages from Jon's eyes. The poor girl had no idea what lay beneath the cloth.

"You cannot simply remove the poultices without Maester Luwin's permission Arya!" Catelyn answered in a scolding tone even as Jon seemed to inaudibly sigh. "You have to-Ahhh!" She was interrupted by Jon firmly tugging the bandages off his face.

Ned had heard tell of miracles before. For the most part, he had privately dismissed them as tricksters and carefully exaggerated illusions. But there was nothing exaggerated or illusionary about Jon's storm grey Stark eyes looking back at Arya's. There was no trick or sleight of hand that could allow a man to regrow that which simply was not there any longer.

Cat was shocked into silence as she took in Jon's very whole eyes, her face turning a pale shade as she whispered: "Impossible…"

Mikahl appeared awestruck, visibly restraining himself from attempting to move Arya and examine the medical mystery Jon now represented.

Jon and Arya's identical Stark eyes were locked for a few moments before Jon spoke again.

"I need to speak with Lord Stark alone Arya. He and I need to talk privately before anything else happens." His tone was gentle, but firm. He was not going to be yielding on this matter, that much was clear.

Ned gave himself a little mental shake and steeled himself. This was not going to go over well with his lady wife or his maester, but there was no doubt that he needed to speak privately with Jon now.

"Jon is right." Ned declared, allowing his mask as Lord of Winterfell to come to the front. His face morphed into a thing of stone as he instructed: "Leave us now. All of you."

Arya protesting his decision was not a surprise. Luwin and Catelyn joining their voices to hers even less so. The three expressed their displeasure with his granting of Jon's request to speak alone for varying reasons: Arya didn't want to be parted from her favorite sibling so soon after his awakening, Luwin ostensibly wished to examine Jon to be sure he had recovered from his unconsciousness (while really attempting to figure out how he had managed to regenerate his previously destroyed eyes) whereas Catelyn objected that before any sort of questioning took place that Maester Luwin should be permitted to look over the boy.

"This is not up for discussion. Leave. Now." He commanded in a warning tone, taking a seat in an empty chair nearby Jon's bedside. Mikhal and Cat quieted at his slight increase in volume though his lady wife had looked positively mutinous. As they went for the door, Jon had kissed Arya's forehead and gently took her by the shoulders to give her a small push toward the exit to his sickroom.

"This shouldn't take long Arya. I'll be out soon." Jon reassured, swinging around on the bed to face Eddard. Arya crossed her arms suspiciously, visibly unhappy that both her father and her brother were denying her the chance to stay with them.

"And you'll tell me what was so urgent it couldn't wait a few hours?" She prompted leadingly, even as Cat placed her hand on her right shoulder to steer her out of the room.

"I can't promise that." Jon responded. "But I can certainly promise I will be out soon." He continued, smiling brightly in that way he only ever seemed to around his most constant companion in Winterfell. Arya stomped her left foot, displeasure evident even as she came back up to the bedside to give her brother one last rib-cracking hug.

"I'll hold you to that." She swore as she pulled back, trudging toward the door as though still half-tempted to turn around and plant herself obstinately in the room.

"I expect nothing less." He responded, throwing the blanket off his legs as Lady Catelyn shut the door firmly behind the three.

Immediately, his adopted son went from smiling to frowning. Eddard showed no external reaction to the change in attitude, content to let the boy begin the conversation on his terms even as he itched to question him about his regrown eyes.

"Let us be honest with each other Lord Stark." Jon said abruptly, standing up with no apparent issue. He avoided looking at Ned as his eyes scanned the room, looking for clothing that could be worn outside the sickroom. "We both know who my mother is. But only I know who my father is. Are you willing to exchange a favor for the name?"

"You aren't speaking sense Jon. You know I am your father." Eddard shook his head, the answer flowing automatically to his lips.

"That's where you're wrong Uncle." Jon said in return, his back turned to Eddard as he appeared to continue to hunt for clothing to wear. Eddard in the meantime felt as though the breath had been knocked from his lungs. He had been sure to never speak of Jon's parentage with anyone. He had barely even acknowledged it to himself least he feel the accumulated guilt borne from years of deception. He kept himself composed, unwilling to give too much away.

"What are you talking about Jon?" The Lord of Winterfell asked, shifting in the chair to better face the dark haired young bastard.

Jon glanced at him through his peripheral vision as he found a simple pair of leather breeches. With a tone almost as dry as Dorne, he said: "Unless the Starks have a lot more in common with the Targaryans then Maester Luwin is willing to admit I find it doubtful that you're both my father and my uncle."

"And what makes you so sure I'm your uncle?" Eddard shot back, trying to figure how Jon knew something only two living people did. Perhaps the boy was simply trying to bluff him into revealing the truth of his mother to him.

Jon faced Eddard entirely as he pulled off his oversized sleeping shirt. He idly noted that Jon's skin appeared as unblemished as it had the day he'd been born. The minor scars he'd accumulated from rough-housing and exploration around Winterfell had disappeared. It was yet more alarming evidence that his recent bout of unconsciousness and subsequent healing had been influenced by a power not of this world.

Jon's eyes met his own when he spoke the simple yet impossible answer.

"Lyanna Stark told me." He said matter of factly.

_'He thinks he spoke to Lyanna?'_ Eddard thought in alarm. In all his years as Lord of Winterfell, the patriarch of the Stark family had believed in the Old Gods, had seen Catelyn's belief in the New Gods. But he had never heard of the dead speaking to someone from the realm of the living. But then again, before today he hadn't believed it possible for a man to regrow plucked eyes while sleeping.

"What else did she tell you?" He asked, keeping his voice level in an effort not to hint he wasn't sure whether Jon's sense was fully intact or not. If Jon had spoken to something that claimed to Lyanna, who was to say it honestly was her? That it wasn't some other spirit taking on her form for his benefit? Though Ned honestly couldn't see what the point of it would be. Jon had never known Lyanna when she was alive and so would have no context or previous connection for the spirit to exploit by taking on her form if that was the case.

"Mother said that she thinks you should let Arya try horseback riding. She said it would be amusing to see if maybe she has more in common with her aunt Lyanna than just looks." Jon answered, pulling on a woolen shirt as his lips curved upward in a smile, likely a result of imagining Arya getting dedicated horse riding lessons. Ned could only imagine the sort of mischief the girl would get into with the mobility a fully trained horse could provide her.

He had to internally concede though, that Jon's statement sounded like something Lyanna would say. And only a few of his own generation had been aware of Lyanna's love of riding. He knew he and Cat had certainly never told the children anything about it. But he would reserve full judgment on Jon's claim when he had heard the rest of his story.

"Why don't you explain to me what happened in the Sept?" He asked, moving onto another subject. He didn't want Jon to distract him from the central issue he had supposedly needed to talk to him alone about.

"I want you to first promise me that you'll grant the favor I ask at the end of our discussion." Jon stated, sitting down across from him on the bed now that he had finished changing. His grey eyes were focused and sharper than Eddard had remembered them being previously. "I can tell you nothing until I have your word."

"If you do not fully explain everything and give me compelling reasons why I should, I will not grant the favor you ask." He warned, unwilling to make a blind agreement even with Jon. "But if you can fulfill both those requirements, than I would honor your request to the fullest extent of my power."

"I suppose that's the best I can expect from you, isn't it Uncle?" He breathed ruefully, eyes closing as his head dropped a few degrees. His eyes opened again and his face returned to its original position as he sat upon the bed before Eddard could respond. "No matter. Ask what you will." He continued, clasping his hands in front of him as his forearms rested on his knees.

Ned thought carefully about what he wanted to ask first. He would have to start simply and work his way up to the questions that would require more explanation. He decided on his opening salvo of questions, thinking they were straightforward enough that Jon would have no chance to lie or obscure answers from him.

"Did you light the fire in the Sept?" He asked.

"Yes." Said Jon with an unflinching expression.

"Were you the one who took Arya from her room?" He continued.

"Yes." Jon said. Not a moment's hesitation in his answers. So far he seemed to be telling the truth.

"Why?" Ned asked, leaning forward to hear the boy's explanation.

Jon exhaled shakily as though considering how much to tell. As he began, Ned could guess he was expecting a negative reaction from him.

"Because the voice in the flame told me it would work." He started. He rushed to continue before Ned could say anything, whose mouth had automatically begun to open and demand Jon explain what he meant by the voice in the flames.

"I came into the Sept to try to clear my head three nights before the fire. There was a candle burning at the altar for the Mother. A voice spoke to me from the flame. But it was different from the rest, it was-"

"The rest?" Ned interrupted, his tone a definite request for clarification. Jon had tried to gloss over this in his explanation, but had only raised more of a question about it. What voices in the flames?

Jon looked down to his left at that. When at last he spoke again, he did so in a slight whisper, as though it pained him to admit this.

"I've been hearing the fires around Winterfell speak to me for two years now." He confessed.

Ned couldn't help staring at him. His mind raced as he contemplated what this meant. Jon had been hearing voices that only he could for over two years and confided in no one about it until Ned had pushed him on the circumstances of the Sept fire just now. Why had this not been brought to his attention before today?

Jon gave him a sad smile in exchange. Evidently he had asked the question aloud without realizing it.

"I'm already the Bastard of Winterfell. It's one thing to be born to the honorable Lord Eddard Stark out of an affair, but then to have addled wits as well?" Jon shook his head. "No. Who could I have trusted telling this?"

"You could have told me." Eddard gently admonished. Surely their relationship was not so bad that Jon felt he had to hide things like this from him. That he felt he couldn't come to him with his problems. Yes, he hadn't acknowledged the boy as a true-born Stark, but he had done as much as he could to make him feel a part of the household. He had raised him alongside his own children, he had allowed him to know the workings of the castle, to receive an education that many bastards could never hope for. Was that not enough to prove his care for the boy?

Jon let out a brief laugh. It was not a pleasant sound.

"And what would you have done if I had?" He asked, the curiosity clear in his voice as his face returned to face Ned's again.

Ned was silent for some time as he tried to honestly think what his response would have been if Jon had come to him claiming that voices were speaking to him from the fires. His gut clenched uncomfortably as his mind automatically leapt to Aerys Targaryan. Or as the people of Westeros knew now him: the Mad King. Could Ned honestly tell his bastard nephew that he would've believed him? That he wouldn't have looked at him any differently? Or been wary of Targaryan madness beginning to show itself in him at an early age? Even as it was, Ned was thinking more and more that the boy was a Blackfyre with an unusually strong connection to the element the Targaryans were famous for.

"I don't know." He admitted slowly, not willing to lie to the boy about it. It stung him a bit to realize that he couldn't honestly say he wouldn't look at him without suspicion or wariness. It wasn't fair certainly, but who could blame him after the strife the Mad King had put his family and by extension the realm through?

Jon apparently let the subject drop. If he hadn't been watching his expression so closely, Ned would've missed the brief flash of hurt that had crossed the boy's face.

"The voice told me of a ritual I could perform to save Arya's life. I was to place her upon an alter surrounded by weirwood from the Old Gods and wooden idols of the New Gods. I picked up the fallen wood from the Godswood grove and waited until the night of the full moon to get them to the Sept and move the idols of the Seven into position. I brought Arya to the Sept and placed her on the Alter. After that…"

He paused, seemingly lost in the memories of the night. After a few moments of silence, he continued without Eddard's prompting.

"I lit another candle to hear the voice's instructions. It told me to light the weirwood, to let the fire spread to the idols. It told me to get closer to her so that I could act. But when I did…" Jon paused here, a look of shame appearing on his face. "When I did that, I panicked. All I could feel was the fire. So the voice asked me to trust it. I did, and in return it used me to draw some kind of smoke out of Arya. When it did, she got better. But the smoke was drawn into me. When she recovered fully, I began to feel afflicted with her illness. I remember coughing, vomiting and a burning sensation inside my stomach. After that, I was unconscious and I dreamed."

Jon stopped speaking, looking at his own clasped hands as though they held the words he needed to speak but would not. The silence hung heavy in the air as Ned wondered if he should ask about the dreams or the presence. He decided to compromise.

"Tell me about what happened while you were asleep." He commanded, now needing to know if the voice that spoke to Jon was also responsible for his injuries while unconscious.

Jon's expression took an edge of caution and contemplation to it Ned wasn't sure he liked seeing on his normally straightforward if taciturn child. It was an expression that spoke to a decision that would lead to him attempting to fool Ned and downplay or outright lie about what happened. After all that he had been told, the Lord of Winterfell was not going to abide partial or falsified information now.

"The whole of it Jon." He warned, a stern rebuke toward his adopted son.

"I simply was thinking you're more likely to believe a demonstration than anything else I tell you." Jon answered, his eyes narrowing at Ned in an expression of teenage rebellion Ned was startled to recognize from Lyanna's face when their lord father Rickard Stark had declared she would not be learning swordsmanship alongside himself and Brandon. "Besides, the trials I endured were meant to be…personal. They are difficult to speak of even if they were effective teachers."

"Then show me what these trials taught you." Eddard quietly challenged, unsure how much of the trials had truly been personal and how much was simply Jon not wanting to reveal everything that had been shown to him via mystical means.

Jon stood up abruptly and walked toward a lit torch near the door. He held out his right hand over the flame, palm facing down as his left hand moved to absently rest at his side. Even as Ned began to wonder what Jon was trying to do, the boy clenched his hand into a cupped claw hand over the flames, the fire seeming to rush to fill the small circle his palm and fingers created. He stepped away from the torch, the light still burning inside his palm.

Just as Ned wondered what was happening to Jon, he flattened his right hand so that the fire was on the flat surface of his open palm. Without warning, the fire hurriedly engulfed his right hand, stopping at his wrist. Ned jerked back in his chair, startled by the spontaneous combustion of his nephew's hand. He watched in morbid fascination as Jon slowly and methodically flexed each finger inside the fire before tracing his hand through the air, making various motions via finger and wrist rotation to prove that his hand wasn't being harmed by the fire that continued to flicker and dance merrily as though it were simply in another hearth burning away more fresh wood.

Eddard couldn't find the words for this. What was he even seeing?

The fire abruptly disappeared from Jon's hand. He looked to Ned's belt where he kept the dagger and gestured toward it. Ned handed it over in a trance, morbidly fascinated to see his nephew would do now. Without a word, Jon brought the dagger to his left palm and slid the blade across it with no hesitation and only a grimace to show for the pain. Eddard moved to his feet faster than he had thought possible. To do what, he wasn't entirely sure but Jon dropped the dagger and ignited his right hand again before he brought it over the cut in the span of less time than it had taken Ned to inhale sharply and stand. Before the Lord of Winterfell's disbelieving eyes, the cut rapidly stopped bleeding and knit itself back together leaving a faint scar for only a few moments before even that faded: leaving the skin whole and unmarred as though nothing had happened. The Jon kept the fire lit for a while longer around his hand before he clenched his fist and placed his palm to the stone floor, producing an audible sizzling noise that gradually died out as his hand cooled off by burning a faint impression into the stone in front of him.

He stood up, eyes still locked on Ned's as though daring the man he had believed his father for so long to look away now.

The two men to meet each other's eyes, both projecting an aura of forced calm. The one awaiting judgment, the other attempting to process the fact that he had witnessed several things he had never imagined he would see in his lifetime. It was Eddard who broke the silence first.

"That definitely lends a certain…credence to your claim Jon." He said carefully. He thought on how to get the answer he wanted before he decided the blunt approach would serve him best. "Was your father the voice that spoke to you?"

Jon nodded his head, eyes unblinking as he watched for Eddard's reaction.

_'Jon's not fully human.'_ Was the first instinctive thought that occurred to Ned, followed shortly by: _'What would happen if the rest of Westeros found out?'_

The various scenarios involving the many houses of Westerosi nobility that all attempted to crowd each other out in his mind were universally chilling. And that was without factoring in what the High Septon, the Maester Order, the Night's Watch and other assorted groups might make of the poor boy. Before he could continue that line of thought, Jon spoke.

"As I am, I don't stand a chance." He stated. There was no self-depreciation or pity in his tone. A simple statement of fact. "I need to train, develop myself. And I need to do it away from prying eyes; mother and father were clear on that point."

Ned was forced to concede the point. Even disregarding Jon's claim of having met both Lyanna and his mystical father face to face, there was definite truth to that. As soon as Jon flared in a way that couldn't be hidden or in view of anyone that wasn't his immediate Stark family, there was a good chance word of it would reach King's Landing and all the wrong ears that listened there. And then the vultures would begin to circle.

"I need to leave Winterfell." Jon continued, the look in his eyes showing how much the idea pained him even as the rest of his face was kept as close to blank as he could make it.

"I cannot allow you to do that." Eddard immediately objected, not believing for a moment Jon would be any safer outside of Winterfell than he would be inside. Here he was among the rest of the Stark pack. It was never the pack that suffered so much as the lone wolf. If the pack was hurt, they could hurt those who tried in turn. But the lone wolf had no such help. They were always alone when they dealt with huntsmen and predators alike.

"Can you guarantee that word of what I can do will not leave Winterfell?" Jon riposted.

"Here you are safe, you are among family. You are protected staying here." Eddard reasoned.

"Here I am known, I am watched. I am exposed, along with everyone who stands with me." Jon responded. His head drooped, his dark hair covering Eddard's view of his eyes. "Believe me Uncle, if you know of a way I can stay here and not be discovered I am more than eager to hear it. But until then" His head came up again, eyes sad but overall expression one of resolve. "I need to leave Winterfell and figure out what I can do."

"Where would you go? Do you think you would not be seen no matter where you tried to go in Westeros?" Eddard asked him, unwilling to let his nephew leave without a fight. He had promised Lyanna he would look after the boy and by the Old Gods, this did not absolve him of his responsibility toward his charge.

"Perhaps…" Jon appeared hesitant to keep speaking. He visibly shook himself before he continued his thought's original path. "Perhaps I should go across the Narrow Sea. Discover more of what people believe of my father."

"People know of your father across the Narrow Sea?" Eddard asked. He had been willing to accept that Jon's father was perhaps not entirely human. But a full-fledged demon or spirit?

"They know him across the sea by various names. The Red God. The One Who Dwells in Flame. The Lord of Light. Or more commonly as R'hllor." Jon ignited his right hand again, absently rotating it while his eyes watched the flames flicker. "They might hold answers."

Ned was astonished he didn't make the connection before. The Red God. The same Red God that mad priest Thoros of Myr worshiped, the one he claimed allowed his sword to be lit on fire when he entered battle. Ned mentally admonished himself. He should've thought of that before his nephew had spelled it out. But then again, he and numerous others had grown so used to thinking of Thoros as a sort of walking joke ('the only man to outdrink and outwhore Robert Baratheon and live to tell the tale' was a common insult or compliment depending on who used the phrase) that it was easy to forget that he had been a man of an actual faith behind the strange tricks he used on the field of battle.

There was silence between the two Starks again as Jon clenched his fist to put the fire out. Ned tried to think of what he could say to keep his nephew here where he could look after him. Finally, when he could deny no longer that he couldn't think of any feasible alternatives for Jon to learn of his heritage and his potential, he bowed his head briefly.

"I do not like any part of this idea Jon." He said. "I dislike your leaving the walls of Winterfell to go to a strange land to find potential answers to questions you don't know how to ask. On top of that, it will pose a serious problem to find anyone in Winterfell with even a passing familiarity with the lands across the Narrow Sea."

"I must do this alone." Jon said, eyes not leaving Ned's for a moment.

"Absolutely not!" Ned thundered, verbally drawing the line in the sand. "If you go alone, I have no way of knowing what will or will not happen on this half-mad quest of yours."

"And you have no man who is familiar enough with the lands across the sea that could be more than a hindrance to me." Jon countered. His expression and his voice was steady, his conviction showing with every word he spoke. "If I go alone, I am a glory seeking young bastard who thinks to make a name for himself in another land. Perhaps as a sell-sword, perhaps as a simple traveler, perhaps as something else altogether. If you send even one man with me, it will be suspicious. Seem as though you're attempting to build alliances across the world for an unknown purpose." Jon's expression was grave as he continued. "Mother and father have told me that the last of the Targaryans lie across the sea. If you send men with me, the Southern Lords will take it as a sign that you are attempting to covertly court the last remaining Targaryans."

In that moment, Ned hated that Jon had these visions whether they were real or not. They had given him ideas and advice on political maneuvering and intrigues that he would've expected to hear from the Lords Lannister or Tyrell not his sister's son. It was not something he had ever wanted any of his children exposed to, let alone one who had already been forced to deal with the uglier aspects of human nature simply because of the story Eddard had been needed to give about the circumstances of his birth.

But once again, Jon's reasoning was solid even if he didn't agree with it. Still, Ned needed to be sure Jon understood the problems he had with this. Not as a Lord of Winterfell or Warden of the North, but as the boy's guardian of the past fourteen years.

"If you go alone, there is no way to be sure of where you are. No way of calling you home. No way of allowing us to even know if you are alive or dead." Ned stated, leaning on the chair back and crossing his arms in disapproval.

Jon's face showed a ghost of a smile. "Isn't that the point?" He asked rhetorically. "Please Uncle." He implored, fire igniting in his right hand again. "I need to do this. No matter how much I want to stay and be with my brothers and sisters, I have to go. It's the only way to keep them safe. Until I gain some measure of control over what I can do, I will only be a liability to Winterfell and the Starks."

"You are a Stark as well." Eddard reminded him. Jon's eyes began to water.

"I know. I've met my mother, remember?" He said shakily, running his left hand through his hair as the fire went out in his right hand again.

Ned allowed his nephew to recompose himself before he asked his next question.

"When do you intend to leave?" He asked: a suspicion strong in his mind that Jon already had a solid idea as to when and how.

"I intend to be gone within two days and catch the next ship I can out of White Harbor. And from there…" He paused. "I shall have to go where the fires lead me."

"Are you certain there is nothing I can say to convince you to stay Jon?" Ned asked, his voice quiet now. If he forbade him, Jon would be as like to sneak out of Winterfell to go anyway. And then what? He dragged him back for imprisonment? Sent him to the Wall? Placed him under guard? No. He wouldn't do that. The boy may not have been his son by blood, but he had been raised as such. If this was truly Jon's decision, than it would be his to make. For good and for ill.

Jon shook his head. "Believe me Uncle; I hate the idea of having to leave. But my head tells me that if I'm to have any chance at all that I need to do this. No matter how much it hurts now."

Ned stood, seeing there was nothing more he could do today to talk his nephew out of his determined course of action.

"What will you tell the others?" He asked as he placed his hand on Jon's shoulder in a small gesture of support. He didn't agree with the boy's idea and plan of action, but that didn't mean he couldn't show the boy he still loved him even in the face of their disagreement. He was not as cold as the southern lords liked to believe him. He loved as fiercely and as well as any other man. But he also knew his love would have to be tempered by his position no matter how much he hated for it to interfere with his family. This was one of those decisions he had hoped to never be forced to make regarding his children.

Jon's left hand automatically covered Ned's. His response was measured but strained, as though he didn't wish to think too much about it.

"That I need to find answers I won't be able to find in Winterfell."

As Ned strode away toward the door, he made a request of Jon. "If you're going to tell them, do it soon. The longer you put it off, the more it will hurt when they learn what you intend."

"I know." He heard Jon's whispered affirmative as he began opening the door.

He didn't see Jon's right hand briefly clench at his chest in a gesture of pain as he opened the door to admit Cat and Mikhal.

_'I hope you know what you're doing Jon.'_ He thought as he cast one last lingering glance into the room. Somehow, he couldn't shake the feeling that something would happen if he allowed Jon to go. But as of now he couldn't see a way to force him to stay and also keep him safe. All he could do for now was seek the guidance of the Old Gods and hope they would be merciful enough to allow him to find a way of helping his nephew. But with winter truly coming, who knew if even that would be enough anymore?

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Another chapter out of the way. My thanks to returning reviewers Caellah, BicolourRaptor, Charybde and Quindecim for their continued patronage, as well as to new reviewers Pop, Tangoo43 and IWantColoredRain for being nice enough to leave a first review! You guys all sincerely rock. Be sure to let me know what you think of the story thus far. Best way to gauge how consistent my writing's quality is after all. :)<p> 


	10. Catelyn II

Catelyn Stark was a confused and upset woman. Both of which were due to the actions of her husband's increasingly baffling baseborn child Jon Snow. After his still unexplained actions in the Sept, his honestly frightening display of mystical self-healing and his subsequent conversation with her lord husband (that Eddard still refused to discuss with her), Jon Snow had announced the night of his awakening that he would be leaving Winterfell for an unknown amount of time.

This announcement had been met with dismayed confusion from all of her children. She had known that Arya and Robb would not take it well, having become the closest to him growing up in spite of her personal wishes. But it had been a surprise to her when Bran and Rickon had joined Arya and Robb's pleas for Jon stay. Or failing that, to explain why he was leaving. And while Sansa had not audibly spoken, Catelyn had been further shocked to see that her eldest daughter was exhibiting visible discomfort with the idea of her older half-sibling leaving Winterfell.

When asked why, the bastard Stark would only ever repeat one answer. That he was seeking answers he couldn't find in Winterfell. He refused to elaborate on what answers he was seeking, what questions he was trying to solve, why he wouldn't find them in Winterfell or how he knew any of those three things to begin with. But in any case, he had been resolute in his conviction that he had to do this.

After the boys had retired for the night, Catelyn noticed the next day that while they carefully didn't mention the Snow's departure date after, they seemed to have accepted what evidence he had presented behind closed doors well enough that they were not inclined to openly try changing his mind. Sansa had not protested or spoken to the boy about the matter that Cat knew of. But she had recently seemed to be given to lapses of silent contemplation more often than Catelyn had known her to be before.

Yet the one who had taken it the worst by far had been Arya.

Catelyn had always known in her mind that her wild daughter and her husband's bastard were thicker than thieves. But she had never realized the extent until she had, entirely by accident, overheard them arguing in one of the corridors of Winterfell. Not playfully bantering, lightly teasing or fondly name-calling as she had seen them do before. This was genuinely hurt and angry feelings being aired between them.

She didn't know how long they had been having this discussion. But when she had been turning the corner she had heard Arya's voice. It had been angry in a way she could scarcely remember hearing in her youngest girl. In response, she'd instinctively moved back so she was around the corner from the noise; invisible to them if they may look to see if they had watchers.

"Why can't you trust me with this?!" She heard echoing down at the corridor intersection.

"It's not a question of trust." The bastard's voice had answered, sounding truly regretful even muffled by distance. "It's a question of safety."

"How am I going to be unsafe knowing what's happened to you? Just explain that to me!" She heard Arya exclaim.

"I cannot tell you! Why do you ask this of me?!" She heard the boy snap. "I cannot tell you Arya! By the gods, do you think I haven't wanted to! That I enjoy having to leave the only family I've ever known?! But I **do not** have a choice in this!"

She was about to turn the corner to break the two up when she heard Arya's answer.

"I ask this of you because it feels like I'm losing my brother!" She was surprised that underneath the righteously fierce anger, there was a distinct waver in Arya's voice. It sounded to Catelyn's ear as though she was trying to remain angry so as to not allow herself to feel sadness. "First you get knocked out for weeks after doing some weird magical thing that you still refuse to tell me! I'm not allowed to see you, but I see Maester Luwin come and go with bloody bandages all the time. Then Sansa of all people is brought in to help mother care for you. After trying to help once, she comes out convinced that you're being tormented by a demon! A **demon** Jon! She never tells me what she saw to convince her of that, leaving me to assume the worst about you!"

There was a pause during which neither of them spoke. Before long Arya resumed her venting.

"Then I finally sneak past them all so I can stay with you. You wake up; tell me to leave so you can talk to father! You never tell me what you talked about. Then, that night you announce that oh by the way: you're going to be leaving Winterfell for an unknown amount of time to go gods only know where to answer questions you refuse to tell us because the answers you don't know aren't going to be in Winterfell! Everyone can see something's happened to you! But instead of getting help from any of us, from the family that would do anything for you, you refuse to explain anything that's going on! You act as though you've got something to hide and you…" Her daughter didn't go on, the waver now more pronounced in her voice.

"I act as though I'm hiding something because I **am** hiding something Arya." He answered. The tone of resignation was strong in his voice. "I don't hide it by choice. I hide it by necessity. I discussed the matter with Lord Stark, and he agreed that until I…did what I had to do, I shouldn't tell anyone if I can avoid it."

"So if you can't tell me, why can't you take me with you?" She asked quietly, the sounds from down the hall making it seem as though she had shuffled closer to him.

Catelyn couldn't breathe for a moment. Jon Snow was a bastard boy of fourteen. He was still a bit young for her to think he could make a life for himself outside the confines of Winterfell, mature for his age as she could grudgingly admit he was. But Arya…She knew conviction and willfulness when she heard it. And her chilled heart could tell that the small ten year old girl truly meant to go with Jon Snow if he would but say the word.

Unable to bear the silence, Catelyn peeked around the corner to see what was happening. She saw the bastard had drawn Arya into a hug, his arms solid around her shoulders. His expression plainly told of the conflict he felt inside at her offer.

"Because you belong here." He whispered into her hair. Even as she tried to move away from his apparent rejection of her offer to stay with him, he held onto her. "Because I need to know you're safe. If I could take you with me, I would in a heartbeat." Cat felt herself move forward on instinct as if to stop him from doing so.

"But I can't promise I could keep you from harm if I took you on this mad journey." He finished. His expression told Cat of how sour the words tasted in his mouth.

He moved his half-sister back so she was at arm's length. She deliberately wouldn't look at him, her eyes cast toward the ground. He continued, his body language telling how he felt he needed to get this out before his courage deserted him.

_'Courage in the face of a ten year old girl's sadness.'_ The thought crossed Catelyn's mind. She found she could empathize with him. It was never easy to hurt family, even if the hurt was unintentional. Her sister Lysa's teary face upon seeing newborn Robb flashed for a brief moment in her memory.

"And until then, **Winter Is Coming**. We both need to do what we can to help prepare for the storm." He let out a forced chuckle. "Besides, without one of us here, who would keep Robb and Bran in line?" He asked rhetorically.

Arya hiccupped a tiny laugh that sounded hollow to Catelyn's ears.

"You're really going to go, aren't you?" She asked, as if she had refused to admit it to herself until that moment.

"Not by choice. But yes, I really am." He said, drawing her against him again as her arms lifted to hug him back. They stood there a while.

"I don't want you to leave." Arya whispered.

"I don't want to leave." Jon agreed wholeheartedly.

Feeling she was intruding on a moment that was meant to be private, Cat had left. Her thoughts had been jumbled and unsure for some time afterward. She had taken out her frustration on Eddard in private that night for refusing to speak to her about what it was the boy had told him in his sick room. She had tried to get him to say anything about what he and Jon Snow had said to each other to prompt his bastard to leave.

"Ned, this is insanity! He speaks to you after waking once and you allow him to cross the Narrow Sea?! By the Mother, the boy burned down the Sept! He won't admit to how or why he did it to anyone else!" Catelyn raged in their bedchamber, pacing like a trapped animal. She knew raising her voice at Eddard was not likely to convince him of anything. But on rare occasions when she felt so overwhelmed like this, she fancied shaking him on just the off chance that the rattling would bring him around to her point of view and maybe tell her something that would actually settle her mind instead of a few words or perhaps a few phrases (if she was lucky) that amounted to a nice version of: "I've made my decision and you shall simply have to live with it."

She had grown to love her husband dearly, but his stubborn silences could be so maddening.

At the moment Ned was seated on the edge of their shared bed, forearms resting on his thighs and hands clasping each other as he watched her move back and forth, not uttering a single word or making a sound as he simply waited for her to finish what she had to say. His grey eyes tracked her every agitated step, taking it all in but giving nothing away.

She leaned against the stones nearby the door to their chamber's balcony, taking deep breaths to calm herself.

"I apologize for my ill temper my lord." She said softly, the highborn courtesies she had grown with coming to the forefront and calming her somewhat. "I find myself frustrated and at loose ends regarding this situation. I don't understand why Jon Snow is leaving or why you are allowing it in the face of what has happened here."

"I know Cat." Ned answered, at last standing as he moved toward her. He stopped three steps away. Close enough to let her know he wasn't angry with her. Far enough to tell her he wouldn't cross that last threshold to touch her unless she willed him to.

Catelyn thought of Brandon sometimes in moments like these. Most who had known them both could only think of how different the two brothers were. How loud Brandon Stark was in the face of Eddard's silences. How aggressive the eldest brother was in comparison to his little brother's level head. How tempestuous he was in contrast to Ned's calm. But what no one really seemed to really remember about the most compared Starks was that they could both say so much with their gestures when they spoke no words at all.

It had been that realization that had allowed her to begin to love him for who he was, that link between himself and his family that showed who he really was behind the stony silence and the implacable face.

She turned to him, crossing that last distance between them.

"Why can you not tell me what is happening Ned?" She asked him softly, hands alighting on the back of his neck as her arms rested upon the slope that connected his neck to his shoulders.

His hands remained at his side as his grey eyes darkened for a moment. His eyes darted briefly to the right, debating what he could tell her. He decided on what he had been saying already.

"It is not my place to tell you this Cat. It is Jon's and Jon's alone. When he is ready, he'll return and he will explain himself in full. He has promised me." He said, tone firm and unyielding like the Wall his brother Benjen had taken the black to protect.

Catelyn Stark closed her eyes as her forehead came to rest against her husband's. She was once again frustrated, exasperated and admiring of her husband's stubborn honor and belief in the honor of others. She supposed she had no choice in this anymore than she had when he'd come home with a guilty look on his face and a newborn Stark bastard in his arms.

It was funny in a way she supposed. For so long she had wanted Jon Snow gone from Winterfell.

And now, the day of Jon Snow's departure had come. Yet it came without the feeling of a weight lifting off her chest that she had always imagined, without a resolution that she had so desperately sought for the aberration that was his inclusion in this life they had.

He had been given a good horse, some weeks' worth of supplies, a bow with new quiver of arrows as well as a short sword and dagger set that had come fresh from Mikkan's forge. He had bidden each of her children as well as herself and her lord husband goodbye at the gate. The children with a hug and a brief exchange of whispers. While her lord husband had gotten a firm handshake and she a formal bow. Soon enough he was mounted and off.

They had watched as he made his way out of the gate. They had watched as he went further and further down the road. And as soon as he was out of sight from where they stood, Arya had raced toward the wall alongside Bran, no doubt to climb the parapets and perhaps catch one last glimpse of him while Rickon had stayed firmly in her arms and her eldest children Sansa and Robb had followed her and Eddard back to Winterfell.

Only a few days had passed since that morning and already the castle seemed…**different**…without the bastard boy around. Maybe it was because he had left when things were so uncertain and in such upheaval. Or perhaps that was simply due to her constantly seeing the people whom his departure had affected the most day in and day out. Whatever it was, it certainly did not grant her the peace of mind she had imagined she would find now that he was gone for the foreseeable future.

So now here she was: lying in bed while her husband slept beside her, wondering if perhaps she should've joined her voices to Rickon, Bran, Robb and Arya's in requesting he stay.

As Cat turned on her side and attempted once more to close her eyes in an effort to beckon the coming of dreams, she supposed all that was left to let time tell.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: And so Jon's journey offically begins! My thanks to new reviewers LullabyForAStormyNight122 and WolfassassainKing for leaving their thoughts on the work. And a big thank you is extended to returning reviewers Tangoo43 and Caelleh for continuing to let me know how they think I'm doing. I hope you guys will let me know what you think of the story and continue being the awesoely supportive people you are! :)<p> 


	11. Jon V

Weeks turning into months had passed since Jon Snow had left Winterfell.

He was now approaching the forests that lay nearby the Hornwood keep. He was sticking to the shadows, traveling when he had the energy and resting when he had gone far enough to need to rest. He had discovered early on that the more time he spent absorbing the rays of the sun, the longer his stamina could last. He had recently begun to experiment with how his ability to call and use the flames was affected by absorption of the sunlight.

The results had been encouraging to say the least.

But it was nightfall now and the darkness was coming. As he began to settle down for the night, he reflected on whether he should've at least told Lord Stark the truth of what he had intended to do. Though he had tried to tell himself he hadn't actually lied to the man who had been a surrogate father to him literally since the day he had been born. (He wasn't successful, but he still tried all the same.)

It was true that he could learn more of his father and the beliefs that had sprung up around him across the Narrow Sea in Essos. Just as it was also true that he could speak to his father through any open flame if he was able to concentrate enough.

_'If you must have your enemies know something, have them know something which __**might**__ be true. Do this and you shall allow them to convince themselves of their own cleverness.'_ R'hllor had told him in White Harbor when he had asked his opinion.

Jon wasn't so sure it would work. If these enemies of his and his fathers were truly determined to find him, couldn't they discover that he had indeed made it to White Harbor but that no captain or ship had any record of him boarding with them?

His father had reassured him that even if his enemies took that step they could never be sure he hadn't boarded one as a cabin boy, as an oarsman or as something else entirely inconsequential to captains who just wanted warm hands to help them leave port.

When given a choice between two lies men often preferred the slightly uncomfortable to the comforting. Believing that he had boarded a ship as an oarsman was a much more comforting thought than that there was no way to know where he had been after getting into White Harbor after all. And the most convincing lies were the ones people told themselves.

But his father had been concerned with a more practical teachings as well.

_'If you are to illuminate the darkness, you must first learn to see within it.'_ He had said when Jon asked what exactly he was supposed to learn by sneaking through the alleyways and finding his way around the guard patrols of the docks.

That had turned out to be a mystical way of telling him he needed to learn to sneak, remain hidden and be the shadows he encountered among the trappings of civilization when he had the chance. In the night, R'hllor had him learn to become one with the darker areas off of the streets. To appear to belong to them. To let them cloak him as a well-worn garment. His memories of Bran's climbing served him well here, the memory of his little brother's nimble fingers finding the smallest handhold and feet following closely but not too closely after to give him just the right balance between caution and speed.

He had been spotted several times in the beginning. But always he managed to lose his pursuers even as the city watch grew restless with the whispers of a prowler lurking in the streets at night.

Step by step, stride by stride he had been improving within the city limits. Now he was in the wilderness on his father's instruction, having held onto the underside of a trade wagon as disinterested guardsmen had waved the unwitting merchant through. After rolling out from under the wagon during its first stop on the way to the Kingsroad, he had been relying on his wits and everything about hunting he remembered from Farlan and both his Uncles to find food and be sure he wouldn't leave too obvious a track.

Should he be caught doing any of these things he needed to learn to survive now, he would be rightfully labeled a poacher, a thief of the wilds. And considering he was a bastard to begin with…Well, Stark bastard or not Jon wasn't sure he should rely on the kindness of nobility when they discovered him hunting game that rightfully belonged to them.

He had asked his father why it was he needed to live out in the wilderness. Would he be required to survive without civilization from now on? He had been floored when his sire's voice had answered with a tone of amusement that it honestly didn't know. He had paced the same line in front of the campfire again and again, unable to help the feeling that the merrily crackling flame was watching him in the darkness of the newly fallen night.

"How can you not know?" Came the question, tumbling past his lips without his conscious thought.

"How can you not know the movements of all of the wolf packs that hunt in all forests?" His father asked him in turn.

Jon stopped short at that. It was impossible for even a skilled hunter to predict how every individual pack of wolves was going to move. Sure, they could have an idea of general migrations and how a great many of them would move from hunting ground to hunting ground. Or perhaps if they were focused on a singular individual they could predict their behavioral patterns with some time. But from there, it was all a question of trying as best you could to understand the wolves as a species and hoping either the gods or luck was on your side.

"That's not the same thing." Jon objected as he settled in front of the fire. He had sat close to the open flame both because the heat washing over him gave him a sense of comfort and out of not wanting to give the impression he was more focused on his pacing than on what he was being told. Despite the odd echoes and shifts of voice in his sire, Jon felt he could still read the general tone. And despite the laugh in the voice that had answered him earlier his sense of his mystical father's tone at that point sounded more akin to Maester Luwin when you had given an incorrect answer that he wanted you to discover for yourself.

"Why?" The fire crackled back.

"Because…" Jon started. He was forced to cut himself short. He could not honestly give a reason why the comparison was not an apt one. He sat still for several moments, carefully thinking. He did not want to disappoint his newly discovered parent so soon after finding him; especially given how unlikely it was that he would get to see his mother anytime soon.

He ignored the involuntary pang his heart felt when he thought about that fact.

"Do not fear to speak your mind child." The voice coaxed in a voice that reminded Jon of a bard he had once heard on a those rare occasions when a singer had ventured North far enough to be heard at Winterfell. "We would not see shadows between us, not when there is no need for it."

"Because you're a god. Doesn't that mean you're more aware of the world and what happens?" He asked, feeling a bit impertinent for asking such a question of such a mystical entity.

"Very good," His father answered, a small shower of sparks shooting in the air as he paused. "You are learning one of the most important lessons we can teach you."

Jon was confused. What could he mean?

"You are questioning. You are beginning to seek what is, not simply what is true." There was a warmth in the tone that did not simply come from the heat of the flames Jon thought.

"Isn't the truth what is real?" Jon asked, unable to discern what that was supposed to mean. If something was true, surely that meant it simply was what it was. There was no subjective aspects to something that was true. Was there?

"If you simply define things by what is real and what is true, you would have a very limited idea of the world child." The voice answered. "You, our young spark, are a bastard." It declared. Jon opened his mouth to angrily call his father on that. He was his son, not just a bastard. "Humans as a whole have decided that bastards are an expression of some of their worst weakness. Whether through lust or conniving or carelessness, these children come into the world born to parents who are not openly committed to each other in a way the other humans recognize as legitimate. Individuals may be kind, but packs and wholes are not so inclined."

"What does that have to do with truth?!" Jon asked angrily, leaning forward as though he could stare down his father through the fire that spoke with his voice but did not show his face.

"Are you simply a bastard?" The voice asked him.

"No!" Jon answered forcefully.

"Then you are not an expression of our own as well as your mother's weakness? We were not foolish or selfish to leave you behind to suffer for our transgression in the eyes of others?" The voice asked him.

Jon could not say they weren't those things. To say so would be to claim that they had not brought suffering on his head for what other people thought. It would be to lie. And to claim that all bastards were not what people believed them to be would likewise be a lie and he knew it. What was the point of this?

"What does that matter?" Jon answered in a subdued tone. "I am Jon Snow. I am not just a bastard. I am who I am."

"**That** is the difference between what is true and what is." The voice told him as it shifted into that of a young child reminiscent of Bran when he had first been learning to speak. Jon's eyes widened at the simple sentence.

"So are you saying I shouldn't believe anything I think is true?" He asked, calmed somewhat by the fact that his father had been using something personal to him to demonstrate what he meant while confirming that he did not see him as any less because he was a bastard. It was irrational Jon knew. But after so many years of having to wonder with the Uncle he had believed to be his lord father, it was hard to not think it.

The edge of the flames shifted with the breeze for a moment. The voice of his father returned.

"We are saying that men can spend their entire lives willfully blinded simply because they are content to only seek and to know that which is true." The voice answered. "What you believe and what you question is entirely your choice. That is the intrinsic beauty and the base ugliness of humanity's core."

Jon was quiet for a moment as he remembered his father's explanation for why most if not all would believe he had crossed the Narrow Sea to Essos.

"The easiest lies to believe are the ones we tell ourselves." Jon repeated aloud. He bowed his head as he attempted to take all of the implications of this fundamental shift in his world.

His father remained silent. Jon was glad of it. It was hard to accept that he could never truly trust anything he had thought to be true. As he did, a thought passed through his mind that made his eyes narrow and his head inch its way up toward staring at the fire again.

"How can I trust what the things you tell me then?" Jon asked.

"How did you trust the things we said when we told you how to save the young girl?" the voice asked him in turn.

"Because…I had no other answers. I was desperate and you showed me a solution." Jon explained. "For all I know, I have sold my soul to a demon and you're simply waiting to collect payment."

"Very good." The voice praised, shifting again into a distinctly bravosi inflection. "We could be. We could be telling you things that will make you question everything you trust in an effort to have you rely on us and our wisdom. But if we did so want that, why would we tell you to question us just when you were beginning to trust our word?"

Jon's mouth opened and closed as he tried to find an answer.

"You cannot know. Only suspect." The voice continued, unperturbed by Jon's silence. "This is why we tell you that you must discover for yourself what is: not simply what is true."

"But as to your original question," It started abruptly. Jon wasn't sure what it was talking about. His original question about what? "Just as you cannot know what each individual wolf or wolf pack is doing within the North, so too is it the same with beings such as we. We are powerful yes. We are aware of much more than humans yes. We have great upper limits on what we are capable of yes. But we are not all powerful, despite what you would like to believe of us. Only more aware and more able to act."

"Then you are not a god?" Jon asked quickly.

"No more than you would consider yourself a god in comparison to a newborn wolf." The voice answered easily.

"Then those people who pray to any gods, what use does it serve them?" Jon asked. He couldn't believe that people believed in something that was fundamentally useless to have faith in.

"It keeps them in view of the gods they offer their prayers to. It allows the ideas of gods they trust some measure of influence upon them. And in return, the gods themselves have their powers strengthened and weakened by the strength and weakness of their followers." The voice answered.

Jon wondered to himself what he had gotten into by agreeing to follow the voice that claimed to be his father. He could feel there was a sincerity and conviction behind its words no matter the strangeness of its voice. But still…it was quite something to wrap his head around a deity telling him he could not trust gods or men. Not even itself.

The fire was dying down at that point in the conversation, lengthening the shadows surrounding Jon's makeshift campsite.

"Rest for the night child. Another day will come. We shall speak to you then." It said quietly.

Jon was not going to object. As he lay down beside the fire and felt it reduce slowly to a small pile of glowing logs and heat, he wondered at what he was doing. And what would become of him now that he had truly put himself at the mercy of this mystical father's voice.

He was awake for a long time.

The pondering had not done him much good. But true to his word, R'hllor had spoken to him whenever he projected a bit of his power into the fire: whether he made the blaze himself or simply encountered it in a torch bracket.

"Am I simply meant to wander the North hoping no one encounters me?" He asked now, in a concerted effort to not wonder whether or not he could trust the answer his sire gave.

"No. You are meant to wander the North while looking to control your powers. And unless we are much mistaken, an opportunity to do so is approaching through the woods now." The voice answered, a smile in its highborn lord's voice.

"What are you talking about?! What opportunity?!" Jon hissed, eyes casting around the trees that suddenly seemed longer in the shadows, every twig snapping and moving branch sounding like a stalking predator.

"Use your eyes child." The voice chastised. "You needn't ask us if you can see for yourself."

With a start, Jon realized that he could use the vision he had learned of during his trials. He wasted no time with self-recrimination, instead choosing to close his eyes and focus the strength of the flames outward, trying to feel the surroundings.

The woods were awash in light blue shadows, every tree outlined vaguely outlined and getting clearer the closer to his fire they came. And among the less distinct trees, moving as quietly as they could perhaps fifty feet away was a group of five men. Their silhouettes were bright orange and yellow against the pale backdrop, making them as obvious as if they had started shouting where they were.

Jon jolted when he remembered that he had left the campfire burning, making it almost child's play for whoever these men were to find him. He hurriedly attempted to exert his power over the campfire to put it out. It snuffed out as suddenly as a candle wick in an errant breeze. Curses began to filter through the woods as the men increased their pace to get to where they had seen him last.

Jon could tell he wasn't going to get far now. R'hllor had told him this was a chance to use his powers. And he had to admit that if these men were bandits, it would certainly prove his father right in thinking that this was a chance for him to test his powers in a way that would benefit the north and the realm. Though he doubted that it would be viewed so generously if he were found.

As Jon scrambled into the trees, his feet trying to keep from making too much noise; he wondered to himself how his family was doing back at Winterfell.

_'I hope they're doing better than this.'_ He thought ruefully.

Jon stalked closer and closer to his first target as the others came closer to converging on his campsite. This one appeared to be hanging back, trying to see if it could spot him. A lookout or perhaps he was simply more cautious than his fellows.

Jon slowly drew the blade that hung in the scabbard on his right, the dagger whispering as he drew it.

Jon could smell the man from the scant feet to his right. He obviously hadn't bathed in some time. Jon counted a broad axe in his hands, at least two smaller dirk shaped weapons in his belt and a longer rope that if Jon had to hazard a guess was likely a sling. The pouch hanging from the man's left leg appeared to bear out this theory.

As he approached a silently as he could, Jon noted the man apparently had some kind of paint adorning his face and arms, his leathers and furs doing much to conceal his torso, legs and not much else. The boots appeared to be of good make, the kind a merchant might wear for a long journey. Jon's stomach churned a bit as he wondered what unfortunate soul had been volunteered for giving up such a basic clothing piece. And whether or not they had done so willingly.

So engrossed was he in trying to sneak up on the man that he didn't notice the rabbit nearby until he startled it by moving too close, alerting his target someone was here.

The painted man whirled in place, trying to track where the rabbit had run from, his gaze only about a foot to Jon's left. Jon held as still as he could, hardly daring to breathe.

"Come out come out wherever you are." The man called softly. "The Grimwell clan don't take kindly to no sneaks." He warned, axe raised threateningly as his beady eyes kept darting all over Jon's general direction without appearing to see him.

Jon was trying to keep calm as he racked his brain for any mountain clan named Grimwell. Off the top of his head he couldn't recall Maester Luwin ever discussing one. But then again, if this was a bandit clan, than perhaps they weren't considered a clan so much as a rabble by everyone except themselves.

The painted man started stalking toward Jon's direction, axe raised higher again as he appeared to be searching, ears almost visibly twitching as he tried to see if he could find any sign of what had startled the wildlife.

Jon remained as quiet as he could, crouching low to the ground so that if the man did find him, he might be able to take him by surprise by coming in from too low an angle to guard.

As he tried to steady his hand, the painted man came closer and closer, the others at last reaching his campsite just as its last embers were dying out.

"Tarik!" They called, halting the man's advance as his head swiveled in his companion's direction. "We found the fool's sleep spot! Get over here!" A different voice demanded.

Before Tarik could response, Jon struck. He leapt forward, his right hand bringing the dagger downward into the junction between the man's throat and his shoulders as his left hand attempted to grab the man's mouth.

But Jon had miscalculated.

Instead of hitting that spot between the two, it had landed squarely in the meat of the man's shoulder between the front and back parts of his left collarbone.

Tarik let out a shrill screech even as Jon's left hand hastily grabbed the axe that he was attempting to bring to bear against the unseen assailant Jon had been.

"Tarik?!" They called, all breaking into a run toward Jon even as the now sweating bastard wrenched the dagger through more of the muscle to bring it toward the outer point of the collarbone. The blood spurted briefly onto the ground and almost soaked Jon's hand up to the wrist as his now flailing victim managed to buck him off, dagger still embedded in his shoulder.

The man leapt to his feet, left hand clumsily swinging the two-handed axe down toward where he thought Jon had landed. Panicking, Jon rolled to the right, his right hand instinctively brought up before a gout of flame erupted from his open palm.

If anything, Tarik's screams grew worse. He dropped the axe even as the men with him briefly stopped in horrified awe as his body lit up by Jon's frightened reaction. Tarik flailed worse than ever, his hands attempting to beat the fire off his clothes, his skin, everything. He stumbled into trees as he attempted to get away from the pain that was everywhere on his body.

Jon scrambled backward in an effort to regain his feet as Tarik's four fellows charged even faster. Their weapons were drawn ready and their shouted threats would've curdled milk had Jon happened to have any with him.

Jon grabbed the axe as quickly as he could, the weight and balance of it unfamiliar in his hands. Just as he adjusted his grip so that his left hand gripped the lower part of the longer shaft and the right came closer to the head, they were upon him.

They wasted no time in attacking, the two on his left side slightly faster in thrusting their blades at him. Jon quickly whirled to his left, hands coming to rest together near the bottom part of the shaft before he used the momentum of his spin to sink the axe into the back of his closest attacker.

The man screamed in agony before collapsing on his front, weapon forgotten from his hand as both appendages scrambled to dig the massive weapon's head out of his back. Jon Snow however barely registered this as he immediately leapt for the other attacker that had been directly next to him. The dark-haired man swung a hand axe in his right hand which Jon ducked to get close. He hadn't anticipated the bandit bringing a dirk to bear as it stabbed into his side harshly, the sudden pain of it almost forcing Jon to relinquish his left hand's hold on the back of his attacker's head.

Jon slammed his forehead into the man's nose as quickly as he could manage before he lost his grip. With an audible crunch of a breaking nose, the man's left hand attempted to stab Jon in the side again even as he shouted in pain. But this time, the bastard of Winterfell was ready for it. His right hand grabbed the assaulting wrist, focusing the pain in his abdomen to flare fire into life. His assailant's wrist and forearm caught fire where Jon's flesh touched him, his hand forced to drop the dagger with this sudden onset of pain and light and sound.

As his companions directly behind him quickly changed direction, they once again hesitated as they saw their friend's hand aflame. One recovered quickly enough, using this opportunity to thrust his spear at Jon. Jon recognized his footwork even before he had done this however and so moved his entangled assailant into the spear's path.

It was a more solid thrust than Jon was anticipating however.

The spear point managed to penetrate both layers of the dark-haired man's armor as well as his body as it angled upward toward Jon's face. Jon hastily tried to move to the left, his left hand grabbing the dark-haired man's hand axe from his loosened grip as the point harshly grazed his right shoulder.

Jon's right hand pushed the dark-haired body further down the spear toward the wielder even as the inadvertent victim gurgled in surprise. His shocked comrade turned backstabber barely saw Jon swing and bury the axe in his exposed neck. Jon moved back toward where the dirk had fallen as the final member of this band let out an angry cry as he thrust the point at where Jon had been, the fires still burning bright on Tarik and the dark-haired man's bodies.

This final man was a scraggly blonde, with green eyes that seemed dull in the firelight. Jon could see how crooked and grey his teeth looked in the fires of death he had conjured as he thrust the sword at Jon again, this time barely missing his chest.

As Jon's hand alighted on the dirk handle, the blonde man snarled at him: "I'll wear your guts for garters before I kill you ya little shit!"

As the man brought the sword up for an overhead swing, Jon used his arms to push himself forward as hard as he could, sliding on the forest ground. He managed to slide between the blonde's legs. Before the man could react, Jon hastily cut the back of his right knee. Then spun into a crouching position while the dagger flashed into the back of the man's left knee.

Now acting entirely on instincts he wasn't aware he had, Jon stood himself up even as the blonde's legs gave out. As he rose his hands took the handle of the sword that was falling backwards while the man lost his balance. He quickly ripped it out of the now slackening grip before bringing it in a quick half circle that saw the point stabbing through the blonde man's back and out the front of his chest in a messy spray of viscera and a sickening squelching noise.

The man's eyes widened in shock even as he looked down at his own blade sticking out of the front of his chest. He tried to draw several futile breaths before his heart stopped beating and his head slackened while trails of blood emerged from the corners of his mouth.

Jon let go of the sword, allowing the cooling body to fall to the ground. All that remained for a moment was the sounds of the moving forest and the continued cries of the last survivor, his efforts at digging the axe out abandoned in favor of dragging himself away from the opponent who had just slaughtered all of his fellows.

Jon heard his father's voice emerged from the lowering fires of Tarik's corpse.

"Now child! Speak to the survivor. Find what is in all this."

"What?" Jon asked numbly, his spoken question to seemingly nothing ignored by the terrified Grimwell attacker who still dragged himself away even as the axe weighed heavily upon his back and his useless legs left a bloody trail in the dark soil.

"Unless you want their deaths to have been for nothing, you must question this survivor. Gain the information you need to illuminate the darkness of your own ignorance."

Jon stepped slowly toward the crawling man in a trace. He would lose himself later, when there was time and he was alone with only himself for company. With a wrench, he pulled the axe out of the crawling man's back.

Even as a howl erupted from the man's lips, Jon had turned him over on his back.

"Tell me what I want to know and I promise you a swift death." Jon whispered, unable to look the hoarsely panting man in the eyes.

"Wh-What do you want?!" He asked, voice scratching from his cries of pain and agony.

"Tell me about the Grimwell Clan. Who are they, where are they and why did they send you here?" Jon asked.

"T-They're marauders!" The man groaned out in agony. "Th-They stay up by the-" He hissed sharply as the pain in his back flared unexpectedly. "The Last Lake!"

"Why did they send you?" Jon asked again, grey eyes only looking at the man out of his peripheral vision.

"T-To find a w-weakness in Hornwood. Please, please…" He answered, breaths coming in shallower gasps.

Unable to bear watching him suffer any longer, Jon stood and picked up the axe.

"For what it's worth: I'm sorry." He whispered as he looked the man in the eyes one last time. The axe flashed and in a thrice the head was separated from the body. As the blood painted the ground crimson and the inner heat faded from the headless body, Jon remembered when Lord Eddard had brought him and Robb to execute a man who was guilty of selling to slavers. He had tried to look away, but somehow their father had known and had him look so he could understand what it meant to take a man's life.

Jon quickly dropped the axe before stumbling over to a nearby tree and immediately emptying his stomach onto the forest floor.

His father spoke to him again.

"It is time to use your healing young spark."

"Not now." Jon heaved dryly. He still felt sick in his heart as to what had happened. He had been told stories of knights and squires killing bandits to protect the realm. Yet the stories never talked about the scent of copper in the air. How the smell and feel of death permeated the air afterward like an unnatural fog, numbing any sense of triumph there might've been.

"Where there is death, there is always a chance for life. Burn the bodies so that the scavengers may eat and you may heal." His father instructed, sounding a gruff tradesman in his tone. Jon was briefly reminded of Mikkan.

As Jon knelt before the fire on the dark-haired man's wrist, he couldn't help but wonder how it had come to this. He drew the energy from the fire and used his open palm to spray a small cone of flame at each corpse to light them up.

As he drew the newly created heat and fire inward, he felt it knit his skin and his bones back to the way they were, the blood drying even as his cuts and wounds closed and sealed over.

Slumping against a tree as the first dead fires burned bright while the others faded out, Jon wondered to himself what he would become by doing this.

For the first time since beginning this journey, Jon was afraid of what answers the future might hold for him.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: And so Jon's journey begins! I believe this is one of the first fight scenes I've written before. I'd be very interested to hear what you guys think of it. Many thanks to first time reviewers jeffs87 and Awesome story. And a huge amount of gratitude to returning reviewers Caelleh, Quindecim and the snakesofthesouth as well as the kind folks who decided to favorite or follow the story! Hope to hear from you all soon! :)<p> 


	12. Daryn I

"Well, what do you make of it son?" Halys Hornwood asked curiously, his brown eyes taking in the slightly macabre leavings they had been told of by the pair of hunters.

Daryn wasn't sure how to answer his father. He couldn't tell whether he already had an idea of what he wanted his son to see in this strange scene or if he was genuinely mystified by it and was asking his honest opinion. He had been trained to be the Lord of Hornwood from an early age, his status as only child somewhat of an oddity even for a smaller bannerman's family and thus his treatment at his father's hands alternated between genuine questioning to further his training in the necessary aspects of ruling or lordship and rhetorical questions that were meant to make a point to him.

Though he supposed that if they were counting all his father's children then it would be unfair to exclude his younger brother Larence Snow. But considering that he was twelve and currently residing at Deepwood Motte, Daryn very much doubted that it would come down to him to rule over the House of Hornwood anytime in the near future.

He scratched his wisps of a brown moustache that might've matched his hair if it was more than a few slivers of overgrown stubble as he attempted to stall for time. His blue eyes, inherited from his mother, scanned the five charred bodies and abandoned weapons. He said the first thing that came to his mind.

"Very odd father. Very odd." He proclaimed, his nose picking up a scent that was separate yet entwined with the smell of burnt flesh and cooking meat. His father looked at him before pointedly looking back at the bodies that were scattered on the soft ground.

"Yes, I know it's obvious to say as much." Daryn pre-empted his father. "But hear me out. It's not just the fact that they've been left here. They're also the only things that have been burned in this area! I mean, how do you suppose their attackers could've done that? And what purpose would it serve?"

His father's eyes grew thoughtful as he looked at the bodies again, crouching by one of the nearest ones while the small squadron of armed men they'd brought with them hung back a bit further so they could keep watch for any wild animals who had chewed the bodies any more than they had been.

Daryn wondered how it was these men had come to such a gruesome end here. One man falling asleep in a campfire was a freak accident though it had been told as happening before. (Noticeably without any specific names being given but always a family member's friend of whosoever happened to be insisting it had truly really happened.) But five armed men, all in different places of the forest? And all without setting the surrounding woods alight?

No. Nature was not that strange and bandits though these men likely were, they couldn't have been that stupid. Others had been here. But why wasn't there more trace of them?

"Begging your pardon m'lord." One of the hunters spoke up from the back. It appeared to be the younger of the two, the hunter's son Owen. An average sized boy, his hands were rough from repeated skinning and drawing of the bowstring. His black hair was shaggy, but clean. His eyes were green in contrast to his father's blue and alive with an eagerness that Daryn was unused to seeing from one of the smallfolk. "But it wasn't-"

"Quiet Owen." His father Earic reprimanded softly. The older hunter was black haired like the younger. But that was where the similarities ended. Where the son was obviously eager to speak, the father had barely spoken full sentences since bringing report of the bodies to his lord. Where the son was shaggy but clean, the father was trimmed yet somehow unkempt: his stubble showing he hadn't returned home to shave in some time or that if he had he hadn't seen the point in doing so. Where the son was awed by the presence of the lords of the land surrounding Hornwood keep, the father was nonplussed; instead electing to be more wary and cautious even outside the obvious deference he needed to show.

"But father!" He started, indicating the ground nearby the bodies with a wide swing of his right arm.

"Our lord of Hornwood has not given you leave to speak. You should hold your tongue until he gives you leave to use it." Earic preempted, only minutely shaking his head in response to his son's agitated gesture. He bowed to Daryn's father before he continued. "Forgive my son Lord Hornwood. He gets his manners from his mother. Lovely lass, but too blunt by a half."

"What does he mean?" Daryn asked before his father could answer Earic. He wanted to know what it was the younger boy had seen that they might've overlooked.

"Well," The boy started hesitantly. He looked to his father and Daryn's own, his demeanor now more timid as he seemed unsure whether he was committing offense by answering Lord Hornwood's heir directly. Daryn's father waved his hand in a gesture that seemed to indicate he should go on.

"The thing is m'lord, this wasn't the work of more than one man." He got out in a rush. He obviously didn't want his father or Lord Hornwood to change their minds about letting him speak his peace by taking too long.

"What?!" Came Halys's sharp question. He took two steps toward the boy while Daryn did the same, both seeking to draw more out of the younger hunter. How could one man have possibly done all of this?

"If you follow their tracks back where they came from m'lord Hornwood," The boy began, eyes beginning to shine with enthusiasm again as they got onto the subject of how he figured that. "You'll see that they was looking at someone's camp."

He walked away from the clearing for a bit, finally coming to a larger gap in the trees that one could call a small clearing if they were feeling generous.

"See this here on the ground?" He said, bringing his hand to hover a few inches above a mound of darkened earth that Daryn hadn't even noticed until the young man had pointed it out. "This was a fire pit when these men got killed. You can tell from the ashes that remain in it even after the man tried to bury it. And before the tracks that came from the dead men disturb the place, there's only one set of clear feet. They thought they'd catch him off guard. But somehow," He indicated a small area nearby the fire pit that had been partially overrun but still contained many overlapping impressions of what Daryn assumed were the dead men's tracks. "He saw them coming. He went this way:" He started walking toward the area they had found the bodies.

"He encountered one of them. The others probably heard, came right quick. Six sets of prints lead here. Only one goes back to the camp again and moves away from it." He concluded, smiling broadly even in the stench of old burnt flesh.

His father Earic sighed quietly. "The boy is right Lord Hornwood. But he misses the most obvious things and the reason I didn't want to say such earlier."

Owen looked at his father in astonishment.

"Firstly, he misses that there is no evidence of how this lone fighter managed to burn the bodies. There's no evidence of him having used any sort of pitch or setting any kind of pyre to do this. Were I a superstitious sort of man, I might be ready to call it sorcery and be done with the matter." He said as matter of factly as though he were speaking only of some possible snowfall. "The second thing however is the most important one."

"The truth of it Lord Hornwood: these men weren't simply bandits who came across an easy mark. Their weapons and what remains of their clothing says that they work for one, but they themselves were a scouting party." The more experienced hunter continued. He pointed back to the area the five dead men had come from. "Their tracks come from the direction of the coast. Near that area, the only river they could've crossed is the Weeping Water."

Daryn's father sighed heavily. "Of course." He muttered to himself.

"Father?" Daryn asked him.

"When we're back at Hornwood, I'll explain Daryn. But until then, let us say I understand where our huntsman friend is trying to say." Halys said, his reluctance to breach the subject obvious.

Once they had returned to Hornwood, Earic and his son Owen were compensated for their information and the bodies of the bandits disposed of. Soon afterward, Halys led his heir to Hornwood's private solar and began explaining to Daryn what the huntsmen's information meant for their potential actions.

"What do you mean, we cannot do anything about this?!" Daryn burst out incredulously. A scouting party of men from a bandit group organized and smart enough to send eyes forward instead of charge into a lord's territory had been killed, their route obvious and their passage through Lord Bolton's land had been unnoticed at best and uncontested at worst. Why did that mean they couldn't inform him about it so that they might do something about this band of raiders he wondered? Was this not what it meant to be a Lord of the North?

"I mean that even if we were to request Roose Bolton give an explanation as to why these men could make their way through his land unmolested, do you imagine he will not take offense at the implication that he cannot patrol and handle his own lands sufficiently? This is far from the first time bandits have made their way through Roose Bolton's land. But how would we prove it? By the word of thieves and killers? Even if they had lived, none would seriously take the word of a criminal over the word of a highborn lord. By the weapons they carry? All stolen, rusting and falling into disrepair. Hardly the tools of a grabbing hand of the House Bolton. The stories and whispers smallfolk tell? Hardly more reliable than the word of the bandits." Halys's tone was firm even as his eyes shifted slightly, betraying his somewhat conflicted opinion on the subject.

"And even if we manage to overcome all of those doubts and do send soliders to hunt down these vagabonds, where would we even start? The only men who could've told us where they came are dead and their trail is long since cold. There is **nothing** we can do here Daryn, much as it galls me to admit so." His father finished, leaning back in the chair behind his desk.

Daryn was speechless. His father who had told him so much of what was expected as a Lord of Hornwood: to watch over his people, to ensure the prosperity of the realm, to uphold the laws and the justice of men was telling him that he couldn't do any of that because the politics of doing so were too complicated. Daryn turned his head to the window of his father's solar to buy himself time to try and marshal an argument and so he wouldn't have to look at his father as he did so.

"What of the magician they attacked father?" Daryn asked. "If we found him-"

"And where would we find this mystic man Daryn?" His father asked gently. He rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand tiredly. "Even if we could find him, do you really think he could tell us anything these bandits could not?"

Daryn was silent. He could not say so and they both knew it.

Halys shook his head sadly. "It is unfortunate that these men got so far into our lands." He continued, running his right hand through his prematurely grey hair in agitation. "But in any case, I shall be doubling the patrols for a while near here. Limited as our house's lands are, we cannot afford any outbreaks of banditry, not with the winter coming." He leaned forward to take his quill in hand, pulling a piece of parchment toward him as he prepared to write out his orders and edicts for the smallfolk.

He briefly looked up at Daryn. "Get to the courtyard and find Lucas. Tell him he needs to step up your lessons so that you may be ready."

"Yes father." Daryn answered softly, knowing he would get nothing accomplished by continuing to argue for action with him. As he descended from the solar heading to the courtyard, he pondered his father's explanation as to why they could do nothing to act upon this trespass. He could somewhat understand it. Their family words may have been **Righteous in Wrath** yet that did not mean they could rush in haste. If anything it meant they had to be more discerning with their anger and sense of retribution. Even under the straightforward and honorable House Stark of the North, there was still political maneuvers to be made. It was annoying but thus far as Daryn had known it hadn't actively hindered them from doing what was best for the land.

Storing food for hard times, trading with merchants within and without Westeros, being sure of their own safety within their borders. It had all been an unquestioning balance of things in Daryn's mind before. But now he couldn't say so with nearly as much certainty. What was the good of being a fellow Lord of the North if they couldn't even work together to be rid of the undesirable elements of their homes? Surely there was enough of that below the Neck where the Southern Lords were as unused to hardship as they were to honesty?

But more concerning was the knowledge he had almost missed because he was not as good at tracking and seeing as he could be. He had given dedicated effort to his studies of running a household and the art of combat, but had never seen hunting as much more than a chance at practicing his horsemanship and his archery.

But that Huntsman Earic and his son Owen had seen in the tracks on the ground and the bodies of the dead men a story he could never have guessed at if they hadn't shown him. If he learned how to truly hunt for himself, perhaps it could serve him in helping keep his piece of the realm safer.

As he reached the courtyard from the halls of Hornwood, his eyes sought out the Master at Arms Lucas Samson. Lucas was a man his father's age, prompted to the position of Master at Arms for his service to his lord on the battlefields of Robert's Rebellion. He had previously been a simple household guard, but had proven himself to his father after taking a blade lance to the gut for his father. He had barely survived and still had trouble with his bowels and his breathing to this day for it. Despite that, he could be a strict taskmaster when he felt Daryn wasn't giving his all in training.

Across the way, he spotted Lucas's distinctive bald head. Striding toward him, he reached a decision.

"Lucas!" He called to the Master of Arms. As he turned to face him, Daryn asked a question. "Do you happen to know Earic the Huntsman?"

Lucas squinted at him suspiciously. "Aye, that I do young Hornwood. Why do you ask?"

"Why else? I wish to learn the art of hunting Lucas." Daryn answered, an excited gleam entering his eyes.

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><p>Author's Note: A glimpse into the aftermath of Jon's encounter from an outside perspective. Hope you all enjoy it! And a hearty thank you to new reviewer Raging Dark King as well as returning reviewers Caelleh, thesnakesofthesouth, IWantColoredRain and Awesome Story! Hope to hear what everyone thinks of this newest installment. :)<p> 


	13. Daenerys I

Daenerys Targaryen wasn't sure where she was at the moment.

She remembered watching the sunset from the window of her room in Magister Illyrio's manse before she was abruptly somewhere else, somewhere she had always and never hoped to be again.

Suddenly she was a small child once more. She was by Ser Willem Darry's bedside, watching him draw in shaky unsteady breaths as he wasted away before her eyes in that house with the red door. She tried unsuccessfully to keep her tears at bay as the man who had looked after her and her brother hovered at the edge of death's domain, his every breath labored and drawn.

She couldn't bear to see the man who had saved herself and her brother by getting across the sea to Braavos. She could still smell the lemon tree in the courtyard outside, hear the faint murmur of the people who moved past their hideaway on the streets. But it was all muted: the face of her family's loyal former master-at-arms looking blankly up at the ceiling of that room.

She didn't know what was happening or why she was thinking of this memory now of all times. Before her eyes, the room shifted, changed to become some strange amalgamation of the bedside and the great hall with the carved animals that seemed to hold creatures both strange and mundane to her young mid. But this was different from the room she remembered, that much was clear.

The carvings were alive.

Ravens and eagles and mockingbirds and sparrows all flew among the high rafters pursued by harpies and winged serpents and dragons whilst the lions and wolves and stags and foxes bit and swiped and snarled at each other while snakes and mice and nipped at their collective heels: all of them engaged in a melee that was as bloody as it was energetic.

Seeing the wood splinter and crack with each strike landed, Daenerys watched as a fire erupted from a figure of a wolf, quickly beginning to consume the support beams of the room. Dany could hear the cries of the animals even as they continued to savage each other while the wood burned. As the heat washed through the room and sparks flew with reckless abandon around the air, she scented the salt air of the sea and the copper tang that came from spilled blood.

Even as she tried to open her mouth to cry out in a manner she couldn't have decided was meant to be confusion or fear the wood cracked and splintered further, blood red vines and leaves forcing their way through the opened gaps in the wood even as she felt water wash over the bottom of her feet. It was as if nature had suddenly imploded and begun to war with itself. She saw the water of the ground rise and impossibly carry the flames toward the wood even as the vines and the leaves lashed out at the fire before driving straight through to push into the outside toward the darkness that had engulfed the world that was surrounding the house and toward Willem Darry even as he lay in bed.

Daenerys attempted to move forward to warn her guardian. But even as she outstretched her hand to cry out to him, he sat up in bed, his mouth opened with an inhuman scream while a blinding light poured from the depths of his jaws and from behind his milky eyes. It drove back the vines even as the leaves attempted to close his opened mouth while they covered his unseeing gaze. The noise was becoming deafening: voices and calls and cries echoing and reverberating in that chaotic chamber from everywhere and nowhere.

Dany noticed in the midst of this that her hand was now the color of ash and dragon glass, eye watering patterns of grey and black swirling on her skin as though she were smoke made flesh. She looked down at herself, the water lapping her ankles now, a ring of rust building up around her toes as though she were a piece of iron left to rust in the uncaring sea. She was starting to look back up when she saw tentacles break through the waves to hold her feet in place, pulling her fast to the shifting surface beneath her feet that couldn't seem to decide whether it was sand or wood.

The noise at last began to reach a crescendo as she looked up. The fires, the vines and the leaves were all combining to create something strange as orange flowers bloomed upon the creepers even while the fires continued burning. The light from Ser Willem's mouth grew bright enough to hurt her eyes more even as the strange leaves flew off the man's face right at her. Instinctively she attempted to pull on the shadows of the ominous night that was just outside her grasp even as the fiery plants and the now tumultuous water worked together to assault her. She instinctively opened her mouth to scream. An unexpected plume of smoke and unfamiliar coldness blasted from her open mouth instead of sound. When it clashed with the light and the fire, it produced a deafening boom and a flare so bright it reminded her dimly of staring directly at the sun as it rose except it felt as though her eyes were inches away from the celestial body.

When the light died down, Ser Willem Darry was standing before her in a void. He smiled as he approached her, right hand alighting on her shoulder in the way she remembered when he had been proud of a painting she'd once attempted to make as a child.

In a disjointed tone he spoke to her, his unhealthy rasp echoing in this strange void of a place.

**_"From the blood shed by the animals below there shall rise a new flame. From the minds of they who dwell above, there shall come a new peace. When the shadow of the old world seeks to encroach upon the fire of the new world, the outcome shall be salvation in death or rebirth in destruction. For to fight the strength of the divine is to trust the fate of men to their mortal hands."_**

With a jolt and gasped inhalation, Dany was back in Magister Illyrio's home and knew once again when and where she was.

She held her hand to her racing heart as the last rays of the sun disappeared beyond the horizon. The floor of the balcony was still warm beneath her feet, the sandstone of the manse having done much to absorb the sunlight of the day.

The only sounds to be heard was the whispering of the lightest breeze and the vague murmuring of the fountain in the courtyard. The fountain itself was a thing of beauty: a naked young man holding a thin bravossi blade at the ready. Magister Illyrio proclaimed it represented what he had once looked like as a young man. In the privacy of her own mind, Dany was not sure how much of that was the truth and how much of it was Illyrio's own wishful thinking. For she saw no blades that were not held in the hands of his guards and no instruction for swordsmanship that had been given to her brother from himself rather than one of his men.

But that was neither here nor there. She quickly turned around to look at the room behind her.

The silken pillows, the thin curtains that adorned a soft mattress. An oaken closet lined with a gold filigree that gave it a somewhat hypnotizing glow in the sun and torchlight. But otherwise there was nothing personal to the guest room that the Magister had repurposed into her room. She knew this was to be expected considering the man had plucked them off the street soon after her brother had been forced to sell their mother's crown in order to put some food in their grumbling stomachs. They'd only been there for a close to a year now, yet it felt much longer.

As she lowered herself carefully onto the mattress, Dany considered her vision just now.

What was it meant to tell her? The creatures of the wood fighting each other. The fire burning out of control but moving with such a clear purpose. And the sea rising to wash over her while something reached from the deep to stop her from escaping. She rubbed her arms as a phantom shiver ran through her slight frame.

At thirteen, she was just beginning to show the first signs of womanhood. But she was still not quite out of that time of her life when she was looked upon as a child. She had heard her brother Viserys say that her body was not yet that of a queen even if she did carry their family's blood. She closed her lilac eyes as she slowly came to rest her back upon the feathery soft bed, silver white Targaryen hair that shone in the moon and the sun alike fanning out like a curtain beneath her.

What would her brother say to her if she came to him with this? He had been on the street for so long, trying to get someone, anyone really, to show their faith in his claim to the Iron Throne and bring them back home. It had considerably embittered him, his mouth soon becoming more and more set in a cynical sneer as yet one more person who professed loyalty to their family name refused to help a king without a single gold dragon to his name no matter how old his lineage.

When they had been young, she remembered that he had tried to keep her spirits up, telling her stories of their family back in Westeros. Of their proud traditions. Of their feared power that still commanded respect even in this day when the last of the Targaryen dragons had died over two generations before their birth.

Now, all he could talk about was how the dogs of the usurper would pay. How the Starks, the Baratheons and the Lannisters would all pay. Unbidden, the image of the splintering wood came to mind. She had seen all three of those animals upon the wood beams of the house. Or so she imagined she had. Though it wasn't much of a surprise considering how often she had heard of her brother talk about it of late.

She tried to think of the Highborn Lords who had turned against their family. Deposed their father and forced their mother to die upon a heaving ship while the sea raged and screamed at them. Much as it had at Dragonstone when she had been born. But when they made their escape across the Narrow Sea, she had barely been a year old. Her brother had remarked to her sometimes, in his darker moments, that the storm had followed them because of her.

It hurt when he told her that. But perhaps he was right in some way. After all, she had been named Stormborn for the winds and rain that had lashed the ground she'd been born and been taken to. No more had she seen a return of any of the storms that had heralded her entrance to the world. But even when she tried to think of the lords in the west, all that came to mind were shadowy figures.

One with a thinning head of gold, one with wild black hair and one with overgrown lank brown hair. All caricatures. All characters that would fit more with a child's morality play than a real world. The scheming climber. The mindless berserker. The honorable turncoat.

But much like the storm itself, she herself had only the account of her brother, Ser Willem and Ser Willem's household to draw her ideas from. She knew it was likely they were not quite so bad as the stories her brother painted. But still, she'd had nightmares when he told her of what Tywin Lannister had ordered.

Her nephew and niece. A suckling babe and small child. Brutally slain for the sake of slaking the Ursurper's unquenchable lust for Targaryen blood.

She didn't want to dwell on that matter further and so closed her eyes to the lowering sun, trying instead to recall the details she had seen in the carvings. But even as she did so they slipped through her mental fingers like grains of sand in an hourglass. She could remember that there were many animals adorning the support beams. But all she could see in her mind was the image of a dragon and a harpy tangled up in each other, their claws tearing gouges in each other and the wood they were impressed upon with each attack.

She wondered if it was a warning or a premonition. Would her brother have to fight a war against an unknown enemy before he would be allowed to reclaim his rightful place in Westeros? She heard movement. Boot heels making loud claps each time they impacted on the way up the hall toward her room.

Her eyes opened of their own accord. She dearly hoped no one had upset her brother and woken the dragon that was his foul temper. He had been sweet to her when they were young, always trying to get her to look on the bright side. But with every successive let down, every simultaneous disappointment, his smiles grew less and less while his anger mounted higher and higher.

She sat up, quickly straightening her shoulders. He had made it clear from previous experience that he did not appreciate it when she was ever acting anything less than what Westeros would consider a proper young woman. Even if it was only the two of them in the room, she would need to be ready for his inspecting eyes that scanned her. Examined her. His gaze made her uncomfortable. It was like he was waiting impatiently for a fruit to ripen so that he could devour it for himself. She was aware of why that was.

She knew the stories of the Targaryen brothers and sisters and their divine passion kindled by their shared blood. But she had never felt anything like that for Viserys. He had only ever been her older brother to her. She stopped that line of thought again. If she thought too deeply about this before he appeared, she would upset herself visibly.

And then the dragon would be awoken.

The object of her recent thoughts appeared in the doorway to her room. He leaned casually against the frame of it, his shorter but equally bright silver white hair framing a face similar to her own, though longer and slightly narrower. His lilac eyes immediately found her, racing over her bare arms and the dark brown silk dress she wore more often than not. The servants remarked that it was somewhat amazing that she didn't sweat herself into unconsciousness wearing the thing. But Daenerys had never found the heat of the manse or the sun uncomfortable. Quite the contrary in fact. She felt comfortable, even safe in the hot open air.

But now, under the eyes of her only family, she felt goose pimples arise on her pale flesh. Her hands absently rose to rub her suddenly chilled skin.

"Hello Viserys." She greeted quietly, standing before giving a curtsy while dipping her head to avoid having to look at him least he read the discomfort in her face's expression.

"Evening sweet sister." He said gently as he pushed himself off the doorframe and walked into her room. He was taller than her by about a head, but had a slender willowy body with equally long skinny fingers. Dany almost instinctively swallowed as his right hand made its way to her left forearm. As he cupped her arm, she thought his palm cool in comparison to her heated skin. His left hand gently trapped her chin between his thumb and forefinger before applying minor but insistent pressure to bring her face to face him.

As their eyes met she saw that while his mouth was smiling, his eyes were somewhat shadowed. She feared what that meant for his temper.

"Are you satisfied here in Magister Illyrio's manse Daenerys?" He asked her, his voice dangerous in that way she had grown to realize meant that there was only one correct answer to the question he had just asked.

She gave a small nod in response.

"Then why have you not taken more pride in his accommodations? Perhaps made it more to your tastes?" He asked silkily, his face less than inches from her own.

Dany's mind raced as she sought to think of an answer that would not wake the dragon.

"I-I haven't yet gotten used to Magister Illyrio's generosity." She got out, only the slight tremble at the beginning of speech giving away her nervousness.

"Be sure you do sister." Viserys said after some moments of silence. He brought his lips to her forehead. He brought his lips to her forehead to kiss it. As he let them linger on the smooth skin of her brow, he whispered to her. "Otherwise, he might get the ludocrious idea that you don't appreciate what he is doing for us. And then you might manage to wake the dragon."

With one last smile, he turned and left her room as purposefully as he had come.

Dany slowly sat herself on her soft bed. She closed her eyes and shakily exhaled. She knew now that she couldn't tell her brother what she had seen. He would never believe her. And even if he did what use would it serve? No, her best option at present was to show her gratitude to Magister Illyrio.

And pray that her future could prove better than her present and her past had thus far.

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><p>Author's Note: Another day another chapter. Hope you guys had a lovely holiday and are looking forward to the new year! Many thanks to Quindecim and IWantColoredRain for reviewing the last chapter. I know Daryn Hornwood isn't exactly a widely known character outside the books, but I thought it added a little something to the narrative. Be sure to let me know what you guys think of Dany's encounter with this R'hllor sent vision! :)<p> 


	14. Jon VI

Jon had been traveling for weeks, moving as far as his power would allow him during the day. It was several months since he had last seen Winterfell. His clothes had begun to get worn, his hair had grown almost to the back of his neck, becoming matted in places now that he went without frequent bathing. His facial hair had never been great even when he attempted to let it grow back in Winterfell. But now it was longer, his stubble and growth of hairs somewhat patchy and uneven. He may be trying to become and look the part of a man now but he was still not fully grown into it yet.

He was moving through the land of Roose Bolton. He remembered from his lessons with Maester Luwin that the words of House Bolton were officially **Our Blades Are Sharp** but much like the Lannisters of the south, their house was better known by a saying they used: **A flayed man holds no secrets**

House Bolton was the once enemy of House Stark. The one House who could've possibly challenged for control of the North and won it. Notorious for the ruthless lengths they had been willing to go to destroy their enemies before at last bending the knee to the Starks. He didn't think it was entirely his imagination that the land here felt different from the rest of the North, something in the air that he hadn't felt in Winterfell, in White Harbor or in Hornwood. Perhaps it was a reflection of the family legacies that had come before Roose that he felt.

Jon wondered to himself why anyone would be so proud of a history of brutality. Of flaying men alive and (if Old Nan's stories were in any way true) wearing the skins of their enemies as cloaks.

He had asked his father what could've driven men to do such a thing: to take pride in it not once, but consistently. Generation after generation.

His father had answered that it was because they could. Jon hadn't understood what he'd meant by that, and so had asked him to clarify. What his father had told him was what Jon thought about now that he was approaching the area of Last Lake, wondering if what his father had told him held for the Grimwell Marauders.

"Are you certain you wish to understand?" His father asked, a priest's voice echoing loud and clear like one of the more elaborate crystal pieces of a Septon headdress had struck a bell through the campsite as the aroma of cooked rabbit wafted in the air, Jon's meager dinner having long since been consumed.

"I do." Jon had said, his piece of hard bread softened somewhat by a careful application of heat from his hands. He had found that if he heated the hard bread he had taken when he left Winterfell instead of setting it aflame, he could soften it somewhat, allowing it an easier passage to his still somewhat grumbling stomach.

"Humans as a whole do what it takes for them to ensure they survive. It is a core part of their identity. You make rituals and ideas such as ourselves to worship inside your mind, and when you do you try to give us distinctly human characteristics. You want something greater to value of your lives and existences. To desire to see your happiness achieved. Or to even simply care about helping you survive the darkness inherent in your perception of the world that surrounds you." His father said, his every word measured yet flowing like a well-practiced, favorite sermon.

Jon wondered to himself if this way of speaking truly came from his father having been a priest in a former life or if it was a subject that he'd thought about numerous times before. After all, if what his father had told him about gods was true, than essentially humans were the reasons the gods existed and sometimes acted as they did.

"You create these restrictions for yourselves so that you can be allowed to survive as you allow others of your race to. But then you begin to call them true, you tell yourselves that they mean something outside of a reflection of your humanity. That they are somehow the same for anything that is to be considered right or good or desirable or real. But that is not so. The rules you create are a reflection of your people as a whole. The rituals you imagine are a reflection of your view of the world. And which of the myriad that become ingrained in you are a reflection of your understanding of both." His father continued as Jon settled back against his rolled up blanket with carefully attentive eyes.

The fire appeared to flicker briefly toward him and Jon thought he saw a momentary flash of slit pupils within yellow eyes at the core of the dancing orange and red.

"Many humans make a rule not to devour the flesh of other humans, living or dead. And for the most part other humans choose to obey this rule. But when a group of them is starving in the desert and they devour their dead in order to survive another moment, they discard that rule because now it is a question of their own life or the principles of other humans. Does that mean they routinely feast on the meat of other men before or since?" R'hllor paused here, the only sound from the surroundings the crackle of the flames. Even the wind itself had died down as though it desired to hear the many tongued god's explanation. "No. But it means they understand that the rule of not devouring other humans was a self-imposed chain upon themselves and others of their species. One they broke in order to survive. And one they hope to live long enough to shackle themselves to again."

"And how does this apply to the Boltons?" Jon asked, unsure what connection he was meant to be making here. There were exceptions to many things in extreme circumstances certainly but how did that explain the Boltons proudly flaunting such concepts of human decency and basic honor as they had when they fought the Starks?

"Imagine that you are facing an opponent on the battlefield young spark." His father said, his voice shifting to that of a roughhewn man that sounded what Jon had imagined a wildling would as a child. "This opponent you face is your equal in every way. In strength, in speed, in technique and in cleverness. But: there is one thing he absolutely will not do. He absolutely will not wear armor upon his legs. He bears a breastplate. A standard shield. A masterful blade. A helmet and bracers fit for a king. But from the waist down, he will only wear simple leather trousers. Is he more or less difficult to defeat?" The fire asked him.

Jon pondered for a few moments, brow furrowed as he mulled the question over.

After another minute or so had passed, he spoke.

"It depends upon why he is unarmored. If he is simply that overconfident, than he is simpler to defeat. If he knows something of his own abilities or the terrain I do not, he is more difficult to defeat." Jon was sure of himself as he finished his answer.

"He does so for neither reason." His father answered, a smirk in his tone. Jon's brow furrowed in further confusion. "He does this because it is a restriction placed on him when he marches into battle and he obeys it no matter the consequences."

Jon's mouth fell open a small amount in confusion. "Than he is simple to defeat. If he doesn't have the self-preservation to armor himself or guard against it, than he won't defend even if it is directly attacked."

"What you saw as dishonorable, the Boltons likely saw as attacking leather armor." R'hllor concluded aloud. "After all, if a man is honorable: that same honor will place restrictions on what he does. And that makes his vulnerabilities and weaknesses as obvious as leather armor amidst steel plate does it not?"

Jon closed his mouth even as his eyes widened in astonishment. He had never looked upon honor as a weakness before and didn't like the implications of what his father was suggesting.

"That does not make it right that they did such things!" Jon instantly shot back, unwilling to say the Boltons had acted well by descending into barbaric behavior.

"When did we say anything about right child?" R'hllor asked rhetorically, his voice softening until it sounded frail and wispy as a browned leaf. "All we have told you is that they were not willing to chain themselves with the same self-imposed bindings your Stark ancestors were. That is neither right nor wrong. It simply is."

"Your ancestors prevailed yes." R'hllor continued before Jon could interrupt. "But that does not make them any greater or more righteous. It simply means they compensated for their chains better than the Boltons could take advantage of them."

Jon sat in silence as he attempted to absorb his father's words. First gods and men alike were not to be fully trusted and now even concepts such as righteousness and honor could be deadly handicaps? It seemed a very cynical, lonely and above all brutal way to look at the world.

"That seems…inhuman." Jon finally said as the fire continued merrily dancing.

"To your perception perhaps." The wispy voice countered. "Not so to us. We see it as an embrace of your humanity."

"How?" Jon questioned, his right eyebrow involuntarily rising like a curtain to reveal his skepticism.

"Think on it when you have confronted these Grimwell men. Then tell us what you think." The disembodied god answered as his presence left the fire.

Jon wondered to himself for days after.

He wondered on the meaning of R'hllor's cryptic words of nothing being true in the world of the divine or the mundane.

He wondered on the purpose behind R'hllor's proclamation of an unlimited existence outside the common binds of law and decency.

But eventually he had to conclude that he was unlikely to understand by ruminating over the potential answers endlessly. As he made his way closer and closer to the Last Lake, he practiced more of his powers, experimenting with the duration of the flames he wielded. He could now manage to create brief flashes of bright fire that lasted less than a moment consistently whenever he pointed his hands. He found that if he had dirt, wood chips, grass or other loose but solid material in his hand, he could light it even brighter when he threw it.

To his surprise, the best material for this little trick of his turned out to be ash. He had thought that maybe since it was the remains of what had already been burned that it wouldn't serve very well. But then he thought on it and reflected that perhaps his father's heritage allowed him to connect on a deeper level with things that had already been touched by fire and so could let him put more power into the fire itself instead of having to create his own path.

It was something else to ponder in any case.

The sun was beginning to set as he approached the Last Lake now. He waited for the sun to fade just beyond the horizon as the darkness of night encroached the blue sky overhead like blood running darkly through a still pond.

As he opened his eyes, he was now seeing using both his human sight and the vision that allowed him to glimpse the inner fires and subsequent heat of his surroundings. The environment had been of middling temperature during the day, the sun a blinding spot overhead. But now it was already cooling rapidly, the former riot of oranges and yellows with the occasional glimpse of green and blue was now quickly becoming an ocean of lighter and darker blues with green and black splashes everywhere occasionally interspersed with the faint red flicker of an errant animal.

All except for the island of light he glimpsed in the distance.

Jon quickly moved toward the light, crouching as he moved across the somewhat open plain. He instinctively evened his breathing, arms steadying him as he picked up speed. As he came closer his eyes told him that there weren't just Grimwell bandits, there were smallfolk here as well. A small group to be sure, being held in a small area by the lake. Two men by the pen near the lake while one guarded them from making it into the camp itself.

The accommodations were somewhat haphazard: for prisoner and bandit alike.

The tents and crude awnings were obviously for the outlawed men; Jon could glimpse a few of them examining their weapons, others moving just beyond the range of his human vision as shadows but highlighted in bright hues with his fire sight. He judged the camp to be a rough horseshoe shape, the tents forming a semicircle. He slowed his pace bit by bit, creeping closer and closer. His heart was racing in anticipation as his mind ran equally fast to try and figure out what he was seeing here.

He could understand the Grimwell men being here. But why where there small folk in this place, penned in and looking thoroughly miserable? Were they kidnap victims of these bandits who hadn't managed to escape their notice while they made their way to the lands of the other noble houses of the north?

As he came within sight of the first patrolling bandit, John could make out the green paint on him that he remembered Tarik and his companions had adorning their bodies. The smell of cooking meat somewhere in the camp made Jon's stomach roil somewhat as he forced himself not to think about Tarik and the burning corpses he had left behind when he had first discovered this group's existence.

He snuck up behind the man, slowly drawing his dagger from its sheath as the bandit came to a stop near the edge of a tent.

Jon's reflexes had been improved over the course of his journey here from hunting and constant practice under his father's crackling presence in the flames. Now he knew what he was doing. In less than the blink of an eye, he had sprung up behind the green painted man to firmly clamp his left hand over his mouth before using his right hand to press the dagger to his throat.

Jon could see the pulse in the side of the man's neck as his increased heart rate made his body burn a bit brighter in the night.

"I'm going to ask you some simple questions now." He hissed in the man's ear. He applied a slight increase of pressure on the knife to the taut skin of the man's throat, managing to draw a small thin line of red. He ignored the stench of sweat and grime that he could feel even through the layers through his clothes it was caked on so thoroughly to the man's boiled hide armour.

"You're going to blink once for yes, twice for no." He continued. "Do you understand me?"

The man's brown eyes blinked once.

"Glad to hear it." Jon said, shuffling them back from the camp so there would be less chance one of his comrades would stumble across them.

"Now then, is your leader here in the camp?" Jon asked.

Blink.

"Is he the one who instructed you to spy on the other houses of the North?" Jon asked.

Blink.

"Is he the heir to a Northern house?" Jon asked.

Blink. Blink.

Jon was taken aback for a moment. If it wasn't a lord officially doing this, what would it benefit these men to study the other Northern Houses? They couldn't be sure of any sort of reward for it, not unless-

"Is he a highborn Snow?" Jon asked.

Blink.

_'Of course it bloody well was.'_ Jon mentally sighed.

"Are there more than fifty of you in the camp?" Jon continued, giving himself a small shake inside the confines of his brain.

Blink. Blink.

"More than forty?"

Blink.

"Are there any animals nearby I should be aware of?" Jon asked. The young demigod saw his pulse get a bit faster before he answered again.

Blink. Blink.

"The truth of it now!" Jon growled, pressing the knife again. He heard the man whimper a bit as the blade bit a bit further into his skin. The scent of urine filled Jon's nose.

Blink.

"Animals for escape?" Jon asked.

Blink. Blink.

"Dogs?" Jon guessed.

Blink.

He abruptly spun the man so that he landed facedown on the ground. Jon straddled his back before pulling his head up by the hair and holding the knife to him again before he could try to get up.

"Now tell me why the smallfolk are here. And if I even suspect you of trying to scream, I'll give you a new mouth to make it with." Jon threatened.

"They're here for sport an' for profit!" The man babbled. "Please don't kill me! I-"

"What do you mean, sport and profit?" Jon interrupted.

"Ramsay, he-he keeps them around cuz we can sell 'em to get some money. The others he keeps as game for his dogs to practice on!" He answered quickly. "I didn't want him to do the same to me like he did the last man tha questioned 'im about it! Please!" He begged.

Ramsay Snow? Jon felt as though he had heard that name before. But where?

It came to him in a flash. Roose Bolton's bastard. He was one of the worst kept secrets of the North, notorious for being the only son of Roose's after Lord Bolton's trueborn and only child Domeric had mysteriously died several years before Roose had declared Ramsay his heir.

Jon Snow could scarcely believe that this was the kind of person Lord Bolton wanted to take over the Dreadfort and the surrounding countryside. As Jon was about to ask another question, a shout rang behind him.

"Oi! What the bleedin' hell are you **doing**?!" The voice demanded.

While his human eyes were focused on looking down at the man beneath him who had relaxed marginally now that someone had come for him, his fire vision showed him the man's outline without his needing to turn around.

He stood out against the cool night air, his average build offset by the threat of the bow he held in his hands. An arrow was already nocked even if the bow itself was pointed at the ground at this moment in time.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl to Jon. He had gotten so caught up in interrogating the man beneath him that he hadn't registered the second man approaching until he had called to him just now. Much as Jon wished he could, he wasn't nearly skilled enough to create a fire to incinerate the man in an instant where he stood either with or without his hands. His mind raced, considering and discarding ideas at a rapid pace before it settled on his strategy. It was risky but the only one he could do with a hope for minimal damage to the civilians.

Jon slowly moved his feet to the ground, still straddling the bandit beneath him.

"Don't you move ya little prick!" The archer behind him threatened, arrow being brought to bear. Jon knew he wasn't going to get much more time than that.

In the blink of an eye Jon moved. He swung his right leg off the man beneath him while forcefully pulling him by the hair with his left hand and sticking the dagger into his throat before using that to leverage his body and pull it over.

As the archer fired at him, Jon managed to bring the gurgling bandit's body around in front of him even as it landed in between his spread knees that were now sharply bent. Jon heard the arrow impact the chest in front of him but wasted no time. With a silent prayer to his father and a quick attempt at judging distance and force, he withdrew the dagger from the dying man's neck and threw it at the archer.

It went end over end before lodging itself in the man's gut, causing him to release a cry of pain before he could even take his next arrow from the quiver. Jon pushed the cooling corpse in his arms off to the left of him as he used his legs to spring up and make a run for the man tugging his knife out of his stomach. He withdrew it with a short spray of blood and attempted to slash at Jon as he did so.

Jon spun in place as he approached, using his spin to go to the man's left where he had already swung the blade trying to prevent Jon from closing in. Even as he dropped the bow to try and bring his fist to meet Jon's face, the dark haired demigod's right hand shot out to meet it.

He took control of the man's wrist as his left hand gripped the man's throat. Without a second thought, Jon engulfed both his hands and the flesh they were holding in fire.

The dark haired man tried to scream but only released a crackling gurgle as Jon's left hand cooked his vocal chords and managed to set his beard alight in the process. A part of Jon's mind was screaming at him to stop, horrified at what he was doing. But the rest of him realized that if he didn't kill this slaver, this willing hunter of other human beings, than he would alert the rest of the camp in moments.

Jon clenched the fingers of his left hand as the man's right dropped the blood stained knife to the ground as he opted to use it to try to prise Jon's iron grip off him. He felt the burning meat beneath his hand give way so easily even as the panicked bandit's fingers scrambled on his wrist and hand to try stopping him. When he judged that his fingers were meeting each other halfway inside the burning meat of the man's gurgling bloody throat, Jon moved himself to the man's right and gave a mighty pull with his flaming left hand.

A small corner of Jon's mind observed that the gaping burned wound looked like a small dragon had attempted to cook his neck before taking a large chunk out of it.

The archer's lifeblood managed to spray out within moments of Jon literally tearing his voice from his throat. Jon looked to the knife on the ground, picking it up and placing it in his belt, sure he would have to use it again momentarily. Thinking quickly, he knew that the two men's absence would not go unnoticed. Silence and stealth were closed to him as options now. Which left fire and mayhem. Hopefully they'd be too distracted trying to figure out who was attacking him to be able to gang up on him.

Jon picked up the discarded bow with his bloody but fireless left hand before he took the arrows from the quiver and stuck them in the ground. He knocked the first arrow to the bow, counting he had roughly ten left after he fired the one he had drawn. As his eye took aim, the adrenaline pounding in his ears caused him to see the fires in the distance and on the dead man's hand. The bow and arrow lit up just as he finished setting his sights on one of the Grimwells that was idling by a medium sized tent.

'_Here goes nothing.'_ Jon thought to himself as he drew back the string. He waited only a few moments. And then…

He loosed the arrow.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Another day, another chapter. Thanks to you guys for favoriting and following the story: very much appreciated. And a special thanks to idrinkstellaartois123 for reviewing the Daenerys chapter before this one. We're back to Jon's pov and I apologize to IWantColoredRain for the fight scenes: I worked on making it a bit more clear what's going on and on streamlining it a bit. Please let me know what you guys think of this; it's going to be one of two major turning points during Jon's wandering of the North. Happy New Years to all and to all the best of 2015! :D<p> 


	15. Ramsay I

Ramsay Snow was enraged.

Those who had been acquainted with his company for longer than a passing glance or a greeting could tell anyone who asked that this was nothing new for the self-styled 'true heir' of Roose Bolton.

Ramsay was a bastard in both the literal and figurative sense. He was very much aware of it as well. His mother had hated his noble father for hanging her miller husband and raping her beneath his swinging corpse. She had never hidden her disdain of his father or him. The first time she encountered him cutting the paws off a rat he caught to see what it would do, she had only remarked bitterly that he was truly his father's son before banishing him from the house for the day.

As he had gotten older, his temper had worsened. He would act out and his mother would try to discipline him with warnings then later resorted to striking him when warnings and banishment were no longer sufficient. But he knew better than to fear her hand. It soon reached the point where she had swallowed her hatred of his father and gone to him seeking help in keeping Ramsay under control.

That was when he met Reek.

Reek had been sent by his father to look after him and to help him grow. His mother had always told Ramsay how ugly he was as a boy: due to how he possessed his father's pale skin, lank black hair and lips that looked like "a couple of writhing worms stuck to your face" as well as slightly narrow dirty blue eyes.

Reek however was in a class of his own.

Balding with only greasy stringy bits of ropy hair hanging down the back of his skull, stubby wart infested fingers, a paunchy stomach that drooped no matter what sort of pants he wore, stick thin arms attached to fingers that looked more like spider's legs than human appendages and squat tree trunk like legs; Reek was a sight to behold in all the wrong ways.

And that was without adding his stench that smelled of something that had died and been trapped in muck for several weeks no matter how often he bathed. Ramsay had remarked more than once when he found out about the man's predilections that perhaps that was why Reek enjoyed fucking corpses; they were the only ones who wouldn't complain about his rank smell.

When Ramsay had at last taken care of that soft spoken pretender that dared call itself his father's trueborn son (who cared if he was recognized as his father's heir, he didn't have the stomach or the ruthlessness necessary to be a Bolton as his death by Ramsay's hand proved), he had grown even closer to Reek as it had been the smelly man's idea that if Lord Bolton had only Ramsay as a son he wouldn't be able to resist proclaiming him heir.

When his mother had tried to physically reprimand him for that, it had led to him slamming her head into the table in a fit of rage. He had seen the look on Reek's face when she fell unconscious. How he was tempted to take her body and slake his lust with it. But he was hesitant to do so while she still drew breath even if she was unconscious.

So Ramsay took the simplest route to fulfill both of their desires. He had calmly drawn the hunting knife from Reek's belt and knelt beside his mother's body. With barely a blink of his dirty blue orbs or a single waver in his toothy grin, he drew the blade across her throat.

She never opened her eyes.

He had given Reek time alone with her cooling body as a courtesy. From then on, the manservant had thrown himself headlong into teaching Ramsay everything he could. How to hunt, how to fight, how to handle a blade. Everything he needed for when his father gave him a task to fulfill to prove he was worthy of being named his heir.

It turned out that his task was a seemingly simple thing to do but proved more complicated in execution: his lord father had instructed him to find a way of bringing additional funds into the Bolton family name.

Ramsay had succeeded beyond his expectations if he had been allowed to say so himself. He had managed to turn his and Reek's hobby of hunting smallfolk into a lucrative slaving operation. They found able bodied smallfolk man and woman alike, to be taken to and be imprisoned by the Last Lake. Only a short ride from the Dreadfort so he could send some disposable Grimwell marauder to his father to give him a message and simultaneously allow his father to claim he was cracking down on the bandit problem in the North. He could use any that might provide a challenge to help himself and Reek keep up their hunting skills while shipping the rest across the sea to make money from the slaver cities.

He had heard from his father's warning about what had happened when Lord Stark had called for Jorah Mormont's head for selling to slavers, but Ramsay was personally sure that if Lord Stark ever tried to prove it he could always claim these were criminals that were being punished in accordance with the Old Ways: by giving them a chance to defend themselves in a trial by combat.

He couldn't really be blamed if none of them were allowed weapons seeing as how he was usually generous enough to give them a head start in exchange. It was better than anything a deserter of the Night's Watch could expect. Besides, when the dogs tore them apart and Reek had his fun with the remains, Ramsay would name one of the hunting hounds after them if they had given him a particularly good run. It was a high honor to have a Lordling remember a smallfolk's name, let alone name a beloved pet after them. Most servants of a noble house could only dream of being recognized in such a way; especially since most of them would have to do something **extraordinary** to earn such accolades!

Funnily enough, it seemed to be mostly women who were willing to indulge his sport and run as soon as he gave them leave. The men were usually the ones foolish enough to try either fighting or groveling their way out of having to be his quarry.

But in any case, this had all gone on for some time now. He had just returned from the drop off of another shipment at the mouth of the Weeping Water that ran past the Dreadfort to choose his next prey. He'd had his eye on a pretty young brunette called Carelyn, couldn't have been more than a nameday or two older than his own age of eighteen. But oh she had been defiant when his Grimwell dogs had taken her and the innkeep wench who she worked under to their camp. He'd initially only though to bring the younger fitter one, but Reek had seemed very interested in the older woman of the two. Beth was it? No, Bess? Well, it was some simplistic name barely worth remembering: he knew that much.

So he'd obliged his most faithful man and brought the both of them from the now abandoned inn to have fun with them. They'd set the older, more buxom innkeep loose in the nearby Lonely Hills and given her a head start. She was a distinctly unsatisfying chase. Didn't even try to do anything aside from run. No seeking out the woods, doubling back, or token attempts at subterfuge: just a straight shot toward the Lonely Hills. He'd been so incensed at the lack of challenge, he'd allowed the hounds use of her before he let Reek indulge himself in the feel of her body. Oh, how she'd cried and begged. It was pathetic really, especially since she begged for her young lover Caralyn's life instead of her own.

Oh, he was delighted she had at least given him some information to use on the younger woman. He had decided he just had to release her that same night. But he'd first let her stew in that knowledge, knowing that when the sun disappeared: she would be next. And even if he allowed the beasts and men use of her before finishing her off, it would be more than such an abomination in the eyes of the world deserved.

The sun had rapidly disappeared beyond the horizon, as if the gods themselves were encouraging his impending trial and judgment by hunt of her soul. The camp was ramshackle to be certain, but many of the smallfolk they had penned in were too frightened of him and the Grimwells to attempt escape anymore. And even if any of the men possessed any second thoughts about following him, he'd swiftly put an end to that trend by allowing them to try proving themselves against his dogs. Both the two and four legged variety.

He'd approached the pen they were being kept in, unable to contain his excitement about the evening's entertainment as her red rimmed green eyes widened with his approach. She had tried glaring and shouting at him earlier. He had only ever grinned wider in response, visibly unnerving her. When she'd tried to call him a bastard, he'd simply used his dagger to stab older man standing next to her in the thigh. As the pitiful peasant had screamed, he'd then very reasonably explained to her that he was no bastard, but a trueborn heir. And that if she'd ever attempted to call him that again, the rest of them would suffer for it since she was going to be prey for his dogs and he wanted her to be in peak condition when she was let loose.

She'd quieted herself after that.

But now something had come to interrupt his fun! Out of the darkness surrounding their reasonably lit camp, a flaming arrow impacted one of his men. That wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't struck his chest with such force he flew into the tent he'd been standing beside and caused it to collapse on him.

Ramsay barely had time to look at it before the man and the tent suddenly and forcefully ignited, causing him to scream so loudly the smallfolk had cringed away instinctively.

The men immediately picked up their weapons: two handed axes, swords and shields, bows and arrows alike. Another shaft flew out of the dark and struck one of the archers standing nearby the water. This time, Ramsay and the Grimwells watched as the fire seemed to spread of its' own accord from the shaft stuck in the man's abdomen to encompass his entire form. In less time than it took to blink, he was a burning man's form: screaming and running for the waters of the Last Lake to put out the fire.

Another shaft impacted the weapon rack, creating a conflagration as the wood holding the spare weapons, the tent itself as well as the surrounding structures began to catch flame, the smoke and heat starting to choke the air.

"Find the dead man who's doing this you pathetic cretins!" Ramsay screamed furiously, drawing his blade and gesturing in the vague direction the arrows had thus far come from. Even as they started to run toward it, another shaft struck a man through the throat, causing him to fall boneless to the ground. The fire engulfed his form as well.

The Grimwells, hardened as they had been by service under the Bastard of the Dreadfort, were beginning to get scared. The smallfolk were getting restless and Ramsay was beginning to feel that familiar feeling of rage welling up in his gut. When he found the man doing this…

Another flaming shaft impacted one of the guards near the pen, pushing him back into the wood and managing to set it alight. The smallfolk screamed as the fire seemed to spread of its own accord once again. In all his life, Ramsay had never seen anything like this. He could only equate it to tales of sorcery he had heard tell of from across the Narrow Sea.

Another shaft flew into yet another tent, making the whole camp begin to feel like one gigantic bonfire. Ramsay charged toward where he had seen the arrow come from. As he picked up speed, two more arrows followed in short succession, once again managing to impact the archers nearby. As the men nearby Ramsay moved forward as well, one sprouted a feathered shaft from his leg and another managed to take the next shaft up in the eye.

Reek was running beside him now, wheezing as he tried to keep up with his lord's heir ostensibly so that he could protect him. If Ramsay had to hazard a guess as to what Reek's actual motives were, he would say it was more along the lines of not wanting to be roasted in the blaze the camp was becoming.

Only about half their men were actually following him to attack this intruder, but that should be more than enough. They knew better than to give less than their all in service to Ramsay. Though it seemed those who were staying behind would soon need to learn that particular lesson a second time.

As Ramsay squinted into the dark, he thought he saw the form of a young man. The flaming arrow in the bow he held told him it was only him attacking his operation. But impossibly, the bow itself seemed to be aflame as well the closer Ramsay got to seeing it. The last arrow loosed. Ramsay rolled to the left as the shaft sailed by him before burying itself in Reek who had been behind him and to his right.

Reek's tortuous cries and disgusting stench competed to see which sense around them could be deadened first. Ramsay shut out his agonized voice and tried as hard as he could to ignore the scent of Reek's burning flesh which was (impossibly) worse than his normal smell. The man dropped the bow to the ground, drawing a short dagger from his waist and holding it reverse grip in his right hand. As the ten maybe fifteen men who had followed Ramsay charged, the man flew forward.

The first man who attacked held a sword and shield in his hands, charging him down with the simple wooden buckler held in front of him to absorb any attempt by the black haired stranger to stop him via projectile.

The boy waited until the brown haired bandit was within range and swinging the short sword at him in a downward cleave to take a single step to the left before dashing forward. As he did, the shorter knife flashed up and through the right side of his opponent's exposed throat, the blood spattering part of black hair's face.

Even as the dead man fell forward, the boy switched the knife to a thrusting grip before bringing his arm back and throwing it at the right most of three spearmen who were charging him. It struck the third man on the far left side of the formation in the face handle first, causing him to instinctively bring his left hand up to grab the injured part of his face while he continued to hold the spear in his right hand.

The black haired boy (he was a boy now for Ramsay judged he couldn't have possibly been older than himself and so didn't deserve the title of man) quickly closed in on the trio of spears. Instead of going for the distracted third man on his right who was wielding the spear in one hand, he instead went for the man in the center, moving just inside the attacking thrust of the man directly facing him before his hands grabbed the spear and kicked the man wielding it just below the ribcage.

Black Hair's victim wheezed in surprise, his feet leaving the ground a few inches with the kick's impact even as he held onto his weapon. Somehow, black hair had managed to duck under the spear into the outside of it in the meantime. Hands holding onto the spear near the top of the head, Ramsay saw the left elbow flash back to strike his still surprised man in the cranium even as the other two spearmen brought their weapons to bear. It proved useless for the fighter on the right however. For the elbow had proven stronger than his fellow marauder's desire to hold onto his weapon. Before the spearman could react, its point was already emerging through the other side of his neck: ending his life instantly.

Black hair quickly withdrew the spear, spinning in place to avoid the only still armed spearman's thrust at him while the one whose weapon he'd recently acquired seemed to be hanging back trying to find a moment he could rush him. Ramsay shouted at two more men who were hanging back in front of himself: one to get in there and stop this interloper, the other to go and release his hounds. Even as they started to move, Black Hair threw the spear at one of them men who'd been trying to enter the fray wielding a long handled battle axe.

It impacted with enough force to drive through the chest in a brief spray of red. The dead man spun in place briefly before collapsing like a deboned fish.

Even as he finished throwing, the previously disoriented spearman attempted to charge him with a battle cry. It was turned to surprise as he leapt forward and the black haired boy spun in place, allowing him to drive himself into the ground. But the third spearman had been waiting for him to move into range. He instantly thrust with the point of his weapon, at last managing to draw blood as the boy miscalculated his hurried dodge and had the spearpoint graze his right side enough to open a hole in his clothing and a serious cut on his side.

Ramsay grinned widely as he anticipated his hounds tearing this irritant to shreds. Black hair's wounding by his men proved he'd be no match for animals with no sense of mercy or restraint. And no matter how hard he had tried to train them, his two legged mutts just didn't have that obediently ruthless mindset yet. The boy was still fighting his men, moving inside one of his men's attempts to stab him from behind with a dagger. Hands grabbing the rough dagger in his attacker's hand while his arm was over the boy's shoulder, Black Hair pulled downward. Ramsay saw his mutt's elbow bend in the entirely wrong direction even as the crack of it blended with the crackling of the fires on the air. The boy's left leg came up and then drove down on the left knee behind it, visibly shattering it as well even as the spearman and his re-armed friend attempted to skewer him.

The boy was now armed once again, his left hand holding the dagger in a reverse grip as he hurriedly deflected an attack from his left with a small hand axe. A jab to his adversary's throat with his right fist had the man dropping the axe even as the dagger followed into the right side of his throat through his enemy's grasping hand. Black Hair spun in place, in one move leaning down to pick up the small axe and pulling the dead man standing forward with the dagger in his throat, causing him to emit a surprised gurgling yelp as he was pulled with such force as to slam him face first into the ground.

The two spearmen attempted to pincer him between them, simultaneous thrusts shooting toward him like crossbow bolts. Impossibly, he ducked the one to his left by leaning back and then coiling down and out like a striking animal, the axe coming down to sever the spearhead from the shaft before he flew forward, burying the axe in the mouth of the still shocked Grimwell. The other again attempted to thrust at him. Pulling the axe messily from the mouth of his gargling enemy, he flowed around his body before pushing it into the spear. The spear struck true, the blood quickly staining the leather armor as Black Hair proceeded to push hard on the gargling man who tried to get a hold of the shaft to pull it out as he instead slid down it toward his fellow Grimwell.

Black Hair moved around the convulsing body quick as a flash and the next thing Ramsay knew, the knife in his left hand had been driven through the bottom of the last Grimwell's jaw and into his brain before it was pulled out messily, the bodies collapsing like puppets with cut strings.

The other men were visibly starting to get worried now. The ashes from the burning camp were falling on the ground now, but they were sticking more and more to the Black Haired blood stained boy as he turned toward the rest as if assessing their threat level. At that moment, he heard screams and snarls echoing from the camp behind him. Three of his dogs came rushing out of the burning camp toward him. He pointed at Black Hair, instructing: "Get him!"

It was a command meant to be obeyed by **all** of his dogs.

The men and the dogs tried charging forward, blocking the black haired boy from Ramsay's view for a moment. But apparently that was all it took. A bright flash of light and fire erupted from the scene of battle, temporarily blinding Ramsay even as he drew his sword.

By the time the spots were clearing from his eyes, most of his men were dead or running, his dogs slaughtered and Black Hair taking care of the last by deflecting a sword with the dagger in his left hand before the axe head was buried in the last man's throat. Instead of pulling it straight back out, he pulled it out to the side: leaving a jagged exit for the wide open cut in the Grimwell throat that emptied it's blood over his now crimson face and leather armor.

The ashes of the camp and the blood of Ramsay's dogs now stained most visible parts of the black haired boy, his hair now matted with red and sprinkled liberally with fallen ashes.

Ramsay charged forward, two hands gripping his sword as he brought it toward his enemy. Instead of deflecting, he rolled forward and to Ramsay's left, taking off toward the camp. Even as Ramsay attempted to swing at him again as he was retreating, the boy simply kept running toward the camp.

Ramsay was getting very angry now. He had killed his dogs, he had ruined his fun and he was now having the utter gall to ignore the trueborn heir of Roose Bolton as though he didn't matter!

He didn't fear this mystery fighter. He wasn't recognizable to Ramsay. After all his talks with his lord father, he felt confident he would've recognized any famous warrior or supposedly noble name worthy of being put to a face. He sprinted after his quarry, panting in anticipation as a toothy grin split his face. He came upon this maggot attempting to get the last few smallfolk who hadn't managed to escape away from their holding pen.

Well that just wouldn't do at all.

He yelled jubilantly as he swung the sword for his enemy's head. Apparently caught off guard, he barely brought the knife and axe up to try and block as he stepped into the swing. But Ramsay had put too much force behind it. The swing pushed his opponent back in the dirt. Ramsay swung again: this time managing to feel the blade sink through the armor and into his enemy's side and hit bone, most likely from the ribs, as it pushed him back again.

The third swing proved to be his undoing however.

As he swung again, Black Hair leapt back toward the burning tents and landed so close that Ramsay could see the flames licking him from behind like one of his bitch's overeager pups. But that didn't make him hesitate for a moment as he took advantage of Ramsay's over-extended swing to throw the axe at him. The weapon sang true and sank into his shoulder despite his layers of boiled leather and chainmail standing in the way. It burned as it sank into his flesh, causing Ramsay to scream.

His cries grew louder when a spearhead emerged from the back of his left leg, causing him to fall to one knee before he knew what had happened. He had dropped his sword out of shock, his right arm now limp and his underused left arm unaccustomed to the weight of wielding it by itself. As he looked up and blinked once, Black Hair was standing before him and sinking the knife into his left shoulder. He could feel the blade entering the small hollow of space between his upper arm bone and the socket it was meant to stay in.

He had never known pain like this before.

Even as he made his displeasure known, Black Hair's hands clasped his head so that he couldn't rise or move without being at his enemy's mercy and whim of snapping his neck like a chicken bone. In that moment, Ramsay Snow knew he would never hate another human being as much as he hated the black haired boy standing before him.

He was barely aware of the black haired boy asking a question to someone behind him before his eyes focused on Ramsay's with the intensity of a raging forest fire. Ramsay was startled to see grey Stark Eyes peering from beneath the blood and ash smeared upon the face of his disruptor.

"Stark!" He hissed angrily.

"Ramsay Snow." The Stark answered. His eyes formed a glare, his pupils widening even as his iris's shrank. Perhaps it was Ramsay's imagination, but it felt like the burning heat in the air surrounding them was focusing on the Stark's hands gripping his head.

As the Stark's eyes changed Ramsay's world narrowed down to just him and his enemy. He could sense something growing within the Stark's frame, something that made the hair on his skin rise and him want curl up in a corner out of terror. He so hated feeling fear and powerlessness. He had sworn to become a true Bolton so he would never have to feel this way again. He would never forgive the Starks for this insult! Never!

"For too long you have been allowed to shed innocent blood to slake your perverse thirsts." Stark said, his voice growing deeper and distorted, as though he were speaking to Ramsay from within a rumbling mountain.

"For too long you have been allowed to make pretense at being human." He continued, voice gaining a heat that made Ramsay sweat in ways even the now dying fires of his camp hadn't managed to provoke.

"But no more!" Stark pronounced, his voice now an animalistic snarl, his hands feeling like they were crushing Ramsay's head even as his skin felt like a branding iron being pressed into his flesh his mind his very soul.

"I name you for what you are: Creature! Beast! Monster! Burn in the light of the flames and darken the thoughts of men no more!" He shouted, head turning toward the heavens for a moment before his eyes locked on Ramsay's again.

And in that moment there was nothing but pain.

Fire sprang up all over Ramsay's body, it was burning him from the insides out, his organs were cooking inside his skin, he could feel his muscles bubbling and his veins bursting inside of him.

He couldn't stop screaming even as his Stark tormenter's hands let go of his burning head. As he burned, he felt his eyes burst inside his skull. But somehow he could still see. He saw claws of shadow, hands that spoke only of death reaching from the fires of his rapidly disintegrating body reach out. As he was dragged into the shadows even in the haze of animal fear and blind panicked torment, he vowed that one day he would have his vengeance.

Every last Stark would pay for what had been done to him. One way. Or another.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: The second half of Jon's battle at the Last Lake! Hope you guys let me know what you think! :)<p> 


	16. Caralyn I

Caralyn had never been a violent girl growing up.

She'd had two elder siblings: Caeron and Cale. Her father was a simple farmer who had her brother to help him fertilize and cultivate the land while she and her older sister had learned how to run and look after the household from their mother. But she'd wanted to do more with life. Wanted to get out into the wider world and discover what waited for her. She didn't think it would really be possible to happen if she was to stay in their little hamlet and continue toiling the field and being expected to pop out children for some boy in this or the next village like her sister.

Especially since she wasn't particularly attracted to boys or men.

She'd been aware that she didn't find the male form attractive as she did the female ever since she could remember understanding what it meant to desire someone and her thoughts were further cemented when her mother explained to her the differences between men and women.

(Of course her mother had been a few years behind her sister in that respect, but she wasn't about to tell her that: especially not when she might have to reveal she stared a little too long at the curves of the other women around the village.)

She had tentatively asked one of the Begging Brothers who stopped by months before her fourteenth nameday to preach the word of the Seven in their little corner of the North what the Seven preached about those who weren't interested in the other sex, but their own.

His response had not been encouraging.

In that time, it had crystalized in her head that she needed to get out of her village at least. She may not be accepted wherever she ended up, but it was surely better than the disappointment and the shame her parents would be forced through by the rest of her village.

Much as it hurt to see her brother and father's cold expression as she left and how her mother tearfully hugged her while her sister maintained a carefully blank expression when she walked away from home with only a few clothes on her back and a few weeks of supplies to find some out of the way inn or farmstead down south that might be more accepting of her for who she was.

She wasn't too hopeful, but she wanted to think there was somewhere she could go. And just as she was reaching the end of Lord Bolton's land, she had stopped at an inn on the Kingsroad. It was there that she met Bette and lost her heart.

The older woman had a figure that was easy on the eyes and an easier smile that lit up her face. Caralyn hadn't been able to help the heat that had bloomed in her cheeks where the older, more buxom brunette had asked if she was able to afford a bed for the night. She was forced to admit that she could not: that she had been hoping to make her way further south and make her supplies last a little longer.

Bette had smiled and nodded, a twinkle in her beautiful brown eyes as if she understood what it was Caralyn was trying to do.

"Well, much as you probably had boys trippin' over their own feet trying to get at your skirts sweetie, I do need something a bit more real than a pretty smile and a few sweet words to put in me apron if I'm gonna keep runnin' this place." She had joked, her wide smile allowing a small one of her own to grow on Caralyn's face as she found herself relaxing in the more experienced woman's company.

"Tell ya what?" Bette had said to her after a few moments of comfortable silence while the background din had settled comfortably. She had leaned down toward Caralyn, the younger woman unable to help her gaze riveting on the innkeeper's bountiful cleavage while her heart pounded in her ears.

With a great effort, she quickly pulled her eyes up to look into Bette's while she talked, cursing her blushing cheeks that might yet give her away.

"I could use some help running this place. And you seem a hard working young thing. If you stick around and help me out with a few things that need to be done here and there, I wouldn't mind keeping you." She suggested. Caralyn swallowed, unable to help the images that galloped across her mind's eye in that instant.

"I," she started, tongue idly darting out to moisten her chapped, slightly reddened lips. The wind had been particularly strong that day she remembered.

"I would very much like that." She accepted, her heart and her stomach giving a pleasant lurch as Bette's smile grew even wider before she hugged the young Caralyn to her. With her head alongside Caralyn's own and her chest pressed into the almost fifteen year old's, Bette said in her ear: "You won't regret this sweetie, I swear!"

And so Caralyn had joined the Blue House of Green Ale.

Bette had taught Caralyn all she could about running the place over the years she stayed. How to account for repeat customers. How to maintain a warm atmosphere despite limited funds. How to be prepared for certain kinds of patterns their patrons tended toward. How to care for the animals both their own and their customer's. And a myriad other sorts of details that seemed minor but helped things run as smoothly as they might.

Caralyn felt almost like she had found home again.

But she had felt guilty for a time, keeping her attraction to Bette a secret as best she could. She had decided one night to confess to the kind woman who had offered her a place without judgment or reservation. It had been difficult, placing so much trust in this kind, compassionate woman who had felt like a second family to her. She hadn't realized how difficult it would be until she tried and the words kept refusing to leave her throat, instead forming a lump she had more and more trouble speaking around.

At Bette's concerned question of: "Caralyn? What's the matter sweetie?" the younger woman's emotional dam burst and she had collapsed against her mentor that she had fallen from simple crush to so far in love with over the span of two years. She had cried and confessed to all that she had kept bottled deep inside her ever since that day she had left her village to make her way somewhere else in the world. Looking back on it, she knew she had begun to babble partway through, just saying some of the things that came to her mind and repeating other things while hiccupping because she couldn't seem to draw enough breath.

Bette had a simple but effective way of ending her crying. She kissed her forehead and then she had kissed Caralyn's cheek. So close to her mouth in fact that the younger woman could've sworn she felt her lips tingle from the bare inches that had separated her and Bette's.

"I saw." Bette quietly answered her. "I knew the first I met you that you looked at me the way I've seen many men look at me. But I'm like you sweetie: strutting cocks have never done for my tastes."

This time her lips met Caralyn's as the young woman's eyes widened almost comically. She was afraid to close her eyelids and enjoy the kiss simply because she was convinced that if she did, she would wake up and this would all be a dream again.

This was no dream.

From that moment on there had been no more tenseness between herself and Bette, no more secret longing, no more furtive glances that she would pray wouldn't earn her a look of disgust or embarrassment.

They had been happy together another two years after that even if they did have to keep quiet about it in front of the patrons of the Green Ale. She sometimes found herself daydreaming, thinking that one day she and Bette would find someone to take over for them when they got too old to continue running the place and pass it on. It wasn't quite the same as a family farmhold, but it was theirs.

But of course her happiness wasn't to last.

They had trooped in, mud splattering their worn leather armor and rusted swords clanking noisily like the clunking of a metal rod upon a wooden drum. Their noise and presence had set her teeth on edge, the lot of them. But she and Bette could tell that these men would be trouble if either of them tried to refuse service and so Caralyn kept her head bowed so they wouldn't see her worried brows while Bette continued to serve them with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

The ugliest one had a stench that seemed to paralyze the air around him. He kept staring at her beloved with lecherous eyes, his fat lips occasionally getting moistened by a slightly blackened tongue as he seemed to contemplate devouring her. He'd been asked by a ratty looking young man about her age with dirty blue eyes whether he wanted to take her. Caralyn's eyes widened as the foul smelling one answered yes without hesitation. Before she could do more than move her head to the side, she had taken a hit to the back of it and lost herself in the dark of unconsciousness.

When she awoke it was with a groan and a throbbing head. She could smell the place before she saw it, the stench almost as bad as the hideous man who had looked at Bette with such gluttonous eyes. As she looked around worriedly, Bette quickly moved over to her, taking her in her arms.

"Thank heavens Caralyn!" She whispered fiercely to her, holding her tight even as Caralyn's arms automatically came up to hug her back.

"Bette, what's happening? Where are we?" She whispered back as her lover pulled away from her. The woman's momentarily relieved expression dimmed as she answered. Apparently they were being kept prisoner by a company of men led by Roose Bolton's heir Ramsay Bolton. But Bette had heard a few men slip up and call him Snow while they were guarding her. Caralyn was floored. Their lord, the man who was meant to protect them and care for them, had allowed his bastard this kind of freedom with them?

Only a day had passed before Bette had been taken. The one known to be Ramsay's right hand man Reek had taken her beloved out of the pen. When they came back later without her, Caralyn was distraught. She wanted to know what they had done to her.

She regretted it upon Ramsay's joyful retelling to her of Bette's last moments and the secret they had kept from so many for so long. As he casually outed her most closely kept secret in front of the others of the pen, she didn't resist her impulse to call him what he was: black hearted bastard.

He proved her correct when he stabbed the somewhat older man next to her in the leg before withdrawing the blade as viciously as he had stuck it in. His mouth may have continued to smile, but his glittering blue eyes promised madness and rage that she had never experienced before as he explained to her that he didn't much care for her insinuations against the true born heir of Bolton and that if she continued with them, he would continue to vet his frustrations on her fellow captives since she was to be hunted upon the morrow anyway.

But as the night was settling and she had nothing else to contemplate but her forthcoming death and the joining of her lover in a pointless sadistic game by an animal like Ramsay, the camp started to become engulfed in flames. In the panic, the smallfolk who had initially given up hope took the opportunity to stampede the confused and somewhat frightened guards and bolted in all directions. Not Caralyn though. She wanted to stay. Whether to ensure Ramsay's death or her own she could't have said in her half maddened grief.

Out of the fire came a black haired boy. Younger than her by a few years certainly, but if he wasn't a man of sixteen or seventeen, she'd eat the tattered remains of her vest. As he came to the pen, Ramsay attacked him. Caralyn saw that though the boy had managed to drive away most of the other guards, he was not expecting an attack by the bastard like this. As she picked an abandoned spear off the ground, she was proven wrong.

The boy had leapt directly into the burning tent behind him, seemingly untroubled by the heat, and thrown his axe so hard that it had buried itself halfway in Ramsay's right shoulder: somehow driving through leather and chainmail alike. Caralyn didn't resist. She drove the spear as hard as she could into the back of the leg of the man who had killed Bette and then treated her death as a bit of sport.

The boy stuck his dagger in the bastard's left shoulder, disabling both arms before grabbing his head. He looked at Caralyn with eyes a brighter shade of grey than the ashes that had settled in his blood streaked clothing and hair. He asked her if she was alright. All she could do was nod in response as he focused himself on Ramsay. And before her disbelieving gaze managed to enflame his body with a spoken condemnation that rang with power she could feel echoing in her very bones.

As the ashes of her beloved's murderer faded into the ground and the fires continued to burn in the tents, he had quickly taken her by the arm and softly told her that they should get outside the camp now. She followed wordlessly, having been rendered temporarily mute by all the shocks her world had taken over the course of the day.

As the fires died down and they remained outside the ruins of what had been a prison and a hunting camp, her rescuer had not said a word. His grey eyes reflected the obscured moonlight almost eerily, the smell of smoke and death lingering in her nostrils as she continued clutching the spear that had brought Ramsay Snow to his knees.

A crack echoed in the air. He spun around, his eyes on a slight man with darker hair that seemed petrified of his attention. The grey eyed boy simply said: "Go. Never return here."

The man obliged, his bare feet barely touching the ground as he sprinted into the night. A sigh came from Ramsay's killer before he spoke to her.

"Come. We both have need of their supplies." The calm tone of his voice was a sharp contrast to the ash and dried blood that adorned his armor and part of his face. It made her want to laugh and cry at the same time.

He offered her a hand to pull her up. "My name is Jon Snow." She couldn't help but flinch at his surname, the same surname Bette's killer bore. "I know I cannot offer you what you have lost. But I hope that I can help you find a new home." He offered, undeterred by her visible trepidation.

His outstretched hand presented a choice for her: did she dare to trust him? Did she have more to gain or to lose by her choice to do so? Such questions raced through her head but were discarded in favor of a few simple facts.

First, he had killed Ramsay and a good number of his men from what she could tell. Second, he was offering to help her in the face of what had happened. And third, she was too damn tired to think so much about everything that had come to happen to her in this half-frozen place her parents had always told her was a hard but just land.

She took his hand, spear still clutched reflexively as she rose to her feet. She still had not spoken: only nodding in her acceptance of his statement. He didn't seem to take offense at her choice of silence. They had looted the bodies side by side. Some whole and able to be stripped of furs and coins. Others had been burnt to a crisp. They had come across only one or two that were still living, she had driven the spear she carried into them savagely as if they too had personally murdered Bette. The young man who called himself Jon looked on as she did so. Questions and sadness in his eyes, but no judgment. She was glad of that. She wouldn't have been able to resist lashing out at him if he had dared judge her after all that she had already lost.

By their end of their salvaging, they had managed to scrounge up one hundred and twenty two coppers: the equivalent of two silver stags with a star and a half groat of pennies on top. Jon suggested they should leave this place, allow the carrions to feast on the rest. Caralyn only nodded in agreement. It was several days later when at last she spoke to him.

"Name's Caralyn." She rasped, her throat somewhat sore from disuse as he quietly offered her one of the roasted birds he had hunted down earlier in the day. She felt he deserved that much for allowing her use of the sleeping bag and never once asking any sexual favor of her. He seemed content instead to softly tell her about himself and ask simple questions that would only require a nod or shake of the head.

She knew that he was a bastard son of the ruling house in the North. He was a Stark by blood if not by name. That he had grown up in Winterfell alongside the lord's trueborn heirs. That he was traveling now as a way of finding answers to questions he had recently discovered. She had wanted to ask what the questions were, but was still too caught up in remembering Bette to find the energy to ask.

He inclined his head in a gesture of respect.

"I wish we could've met under better circumstances lady Caralyn." He said softly.

She snorted bitterly.

"I'm no lady." She answered him. "Just some stupid farmgirl dumb enough to think that I could find happiness by leaving home."

He was silent for a moment as the fire crackled merrily between them. As she looked up, she saw only the penetrating gaze of his grey eyes that begged to understand.

"Who did he take from you?" He asked, his words drawing a lump to her throat as she thought again of her Bette's easy smile from happier times.

"Bette." She whispered. "She was…" she wasn't sure what to say. In the end she settled for the truth.

"She was everything to me." She finished.

His grey eyes flickered to the flames in contemplation. Just as she took another bite she heard him again.

"You loved her." He stated.

Her head jolted up, her sense of loss prickling her. If he was daring to condemn her for loving Bette…

But there was no judgment in his gaze. Only the firelight and the wish to understand. Caralyn couldn't look at him long without being reminded of how relieved she had been to discover Bette reciprocated her feelings. How much it had meant to know she wasn't alone, that she wasn't a monster or a freak or an abomination for being who she was.

"I should like to hear about her." He offered as she felt his eyes on her turned away face. "If you should like to speak of her memory."

Caralyn's throat jumped a bit. She didn't know where to begin or if this was to be some cruel trick. She didn't know how but she knew only that it could be. It hurt to think of her beloved being dead but she couldn't help but ruminate on her memories of her even now.

She closed her eyes as tears began to fall unbidden again. She wished more than ever that Bette was here with her warm arms to embrace her. But all she had was this fire and this strange young man. How would she even begin?

But without her thinking, she began to speak. She talked of meeting Bette as she made her way south to the Neck. Of finding companionship with her and falling into running the Inn with her. She spoke of jokes made, of arguments resolved. Of small routines that had been as simple and natural as awakening in the morning to feed the chickens and pigs to prepare them for the guests but now seemed like priceless treasures.

And through it all he had listened.

That was not the first night he had asked her of her life before Ramsay. As she talked of herself, she began to ask a few questions of him. She learned of his siblings. Of his care for his family, even the step-mother who had hated his very existence. How he had discovered the need to find answers to questions of personal faith he had recently realized he had. As they made their way further south, he was more and more comfortable practicing his combat in front of her. One night, she asked him to teach her.

He had turned his head to look at her as he wiped some sweat from his brow, dark hair falling a bit into his grey eyes as he studied her for a moment.

"Are you sure?" He asked her.

"Yes." She said in return, positive that he would teach her as he would've his tomboyish little sister Arya that lit up his face whenever he mentioned her.

His eyes gazed at her unblinkingly a moment longer before he nodded once in acquiescence. He warned he wasn't sure how good a teacher he would be, but he was willing to give it an honest try if she was.

The first thing he had taught her: advantages and disadvantages. How they were how many fights on a one to one basis would be decided. She had her gender, her size and her unfamiliarity with combat working against her as disadvantages. But on another hand, she also had surprise, dedication and unfamiliarity with combat working for her as advantages.

She asked him incredulously how not knowing how to fight was both an advantage and a disadvantage. His explanation had been simple enough.

"It means you need experience to be able to truly fight well when you need to. But it also means you have no wrong habits to unlearn because you haven't learned any of the habits yet."

He had primarily taught her some simple blocks and dagger work first. Unless she was going to dedicate herself as a solider, what she needed was something she could use against most fighters who were not professionally trained. And in that case, her biggest advantage was surprise. If she was going to enter a fight, she was going to have to enter it with the mindset that it would end in death or worse for her if she didn't. They would think that because she was a women and a slight one at that, that they could intimidate her into doing what they wanted. Which would often be accomplished by using their body as some kind of leverage either by grabbing her or by getting very far inside her comfort area.

So she needed to be able to block simple grabs to catch them off balance and then be able to stick them with the blade when they weren't expecting it. Jon had drilled her again and again on drawing her dagger from a sheath. Then he would get her to practice doing so when he made a move toward her with her hand. The first times he was able to grab her wrist before she even touched the handle hidden just between her belt and her vest. By the time they were reaching White Harbor after weeks had passed, she was able to consistently draw and bring the dagger to bear when Jon made a move to grab her.

And in all that time, he had never made any romantic overtures toward her: respecting her love of Bette and her general love of the female form. But even in spite of that, Caralyn was privately amazed when they were getting close to the harbor and she discovered that when she thought about making her way south, she could feel some sadness about leaving Jon Snow's company. That she thought of him as a friend, the first one she could truthfully call such after becoming Bette's partner.

And as they were camping one night a few days away from the Manderly controlled port, he asked her where she was going to go.

"I don't know." She answered truthfully, having long since grown comfortable enough to speak with Jon honestly and mirthfully. "Any chance those flames of yours can tell me where to go?" She joked, having long since grown used to the idea that her friend worshipped an odd fire god she had never heard of before coming into his company.

There was some hesitation in his expression. Her eyebrows raised in question.

"Jon?" She asked.

"There…may be a way." He offered quietly. "But I cannot promise what answer you would receive."

They were silent but for the crackling of the fire before them and the shifting of the trees nearby.

"Are you…offering me a…a glimpse of the **future**?" She whispered incredulously.

Jon shook his head. "Not as I understand it. I…" He ran his hand through his dark hair. It had been long enough to reach his shoulders a few days ago, but he had recently cut it so that it just reached past the base of his skull. A bit of a hack job, but considering he still had mostly scruff instead of beard, it fit well with his young man entering into adulthood image.

"I can't really explain it. I honestly don't know what you'll see." He finished lamely, shrugging his shoulders a bit helplessly.

"Will it hurt?" She asked.

"No." He answered immediately. "It just requires you to trust me."

After how they had met and the weeks they'd spent together, that was an easily answered question.

"Show me." She asked him, her brown eyes locked on him even as she nodded agreement with herself.

He came around to her side of the fire. He was face to face with her.

"Alright, what I need you to do is have your hand reach for the fire." He said, grey eyes expressing trepidation and gratefulness at her show of trust in him. She obeyed, right hand coming up so that the palm was feeling the heat rolling off the crackling flames.

"Now I need you to close your eyes." He continued, bringing his left hand to her face after a glance at the fire with a question in his gaze. She did so even as she felt his warm fingers alight on her eyelids, gentle as a feathers touch.

"Concentrate on the feel of the heat against your hand and the sound of the burning you can make out." Came his whispered voice, almost blending with the sound of the logs minutely splintering as the heat consumed them. Her hand was feeling a bit hotter, her eyes showing her random flashes of light in the darkness of her own closed lids. But she listened and she felt, her mind concentrating as best she could.

As she continued concentrating, she didn't notice when he drew his hand away from her eyes and held her right wrist so that her hand could be stilled in front of the fire.

"Now, slowly open your eyes." His smoke filled voice spoke, the ashes in the air almost on the tip of her tongue as her nose inhaled the scent of the burning wood and the slowly heating dirt surrounding the pit they had dug for the fire. "Look only into the heart of the flame. When you can feel the fire, hear the fire, see the fire: then it shall show you things."

But his voice was already fading into the background as her eyes took in an amazing scene. It was a city on the waterfront: that much she could tell from the golden waves cresting toward the red buildings. The port city was larger than she could've imagined though. And inside the streets, she witnessed three hills rise. Upon one hill was a great crater with a softly glowing lump of metal in the center. Upon another was another fire that was steadily growing in strength. And upon the third was a blade stuck within the hill that seemed to sway with invisible winds while a crown balanced upon the hilt at the top of the handle and the pommel seemed to change shape with every movement of the sword.

As she watched, her eyes were automatically drawn to the heads of many who crowded about the three symbols. She looked instinctively to the fire and saw there was a space right in front of it. A dangerous but warm place to be. As she came down to the ground from her view up on the air, she sharply came back to her senses and realized that Jon's left hand had somehow shifted to holding the back of her head whilst his right hand overlaid itself atop the back of her right that was now a reddened palm from continuous exposure to the flames.

"What-What was that?!" She asked him urgently as she brought her hand down from the fire to let it cool.

"What was what?" He asked her. "What did you see?" His grey eyes seemed genuinely curious.

"But, but didn't you-" She asked, gesturing to the fire and then to him.

"I saw nothing." He said as his head shook a denial. "Nothing but you going still as you opened your eyes for a few moments and then gasping." He cocked his head slightly to the left as he asked again. "What did you see?"

She described her vision to him and asked what he thought it meant.

He shrugged before saying: "Well, it either means you've chosen to believe or you've chosen a destination."

Her brown eyes demanded an explanation before her voice did. He obliged her.

"The only city on a waterfront with three hills like that is King's Landing." He said to her. "The three hills are dominated by the Red Keep where the royal family lives, the Sept of Baelor and the Dragon Pits."

The connection to her vision was obvious.

"Oh." Was what she had to say to his interpretation.

"Or it could simply be that you've chosen to follow R'hllor and it's telling you to follow that instinct." Jon continued.

"How?" She asked.

"It could be saying that when you find the harbor you're looking for, you'll find yourself choosing the faith I've told you about over the trust in your rulers and the trust in the faith that has left you adrift." He continued. "But it isn't my vision." He said with a quick smile of reassurance. "I could be wrong about it entirely. Only you can know what it means to you."

As they went to sleep that night, Caralyn's mind buzzed with potential meanings. Once they were in White Harbor, Jon gave her the silver stags plus the pennies from their looting that they had kept all this time. "Seems only fair for the way you helped me out." Was all he had to say when she protested his giving her the money.

"You need to find your way Lady Caralyn." He gently insisted. "And to do that, you need the money far more than I do."

As he explained this when they came to the parting of the ways, she impulsively embraced him. It was something she had never done while they traveled through the North.

When she pulled back, he was visibly blushing even as his arms had held her too.

"You're a good man Jon Snow." She said, eyes bright with happiness for one of the first times since Bette's death. "I hope we meet again in better days."

"As do I." He agreed even as he bowed a bit in a gesture of respect. "Farewell." He said before turning to go back to the entrance of White Harbor.

As she made her way toward the dock, she made up her mind. Jon Snow had taught her how to defend herself and he had trusted her to make something of herself. And if she was going to find a safe port with at least some presence of the faith that had made such a good person as he, well where better to begin?

"Where to?" The gruff porter asked when she approached his desk.

"King's Landing." Caralyn answered confidently. Yes. Where better to begin indeed?

* * *

><p>Author's Note: First time writing a non-canon character. Not gonna lie, a bit nervous about it. Many thanks to returning reviewers Quindecim, Legend3881, Caelleh and IWantColoredRain for their support! And a big welcome as well as a "Hope to hear from you again!" to new reviewers Michael and Anarra! :) Any thoughts you guys have on the plot and character development would be much appreciated!<p> 


	17. Sanjen I

Sanjen had never wanted to get involved with the likes of Ramsay Snow.

He had grown up the only child of a southron farmhand who had moved North seeking to serve under one of the Northern Lords in their fields or their farms. His father was bitter about their life ever since coming however. His mother had died crossing the Neck whilst he had survived. Sanjen knew his father had never truly forgiven him for that. But his father had not tried to punish him too harshly for it, only ever praying to the Stranger in secret when he thought Sanjen was asleep to bring his child back to their cloaked arms.

Sanjen hadn't understood until after his father died some days following his twelfth nameday what that meant. But he couldn't blame him for being human and placing his grief upon another. Humans were not gods: they could never hope to achieve such perfection. That was why the gods tried to guide humanity after all.

Otherwise, what was it all for?

He had moved further North to the lands of Hornwood and spoken with one of the rare Begging Brothers that found his way to this frozen place. That was when he discovered that his father had wished him to die. He did it in so many flowery words and prayers, but he had still wished his only son dead because of how he had been weak and survived the Neck while his mother had been strong and still managed to be killed by it.

He hadn't really known what to make of himself when his father was gone. He had the knowledge to tend animals and to plant if necessary, but he didn't truly want to have to deal with others that would demand room and board when he could barely stand most people's vulgar idea of what life was worth. He was sure there was more to it than that. So he decided to become a Begging Brother: moving from place to place offering what help as a brother of the faith he could though he wasn't ordained and didn't believe he would be any day soon. He performed funeral rites where asked, taught of the seven faces and what they meant to those who chose to follow the faith and generally tried to make the world make sense as best he could.

Despite his pious occupation typically requiring large amounts of compassion, Sanjen had always been a loner: much happier left with only the company of nature and his own thoughts. As such he had never had many friends in his life aside from the occasional animal he looked after: the longest being the last of a small clutch of sparrows that he had discovered upon the ground one day. All but one of the chicks had succumbed to the inhospitable cold of the North. And soon as it was grown, it too left him for the wider world. He had never named his small brown friend but he constantly thought of him. Wondering if he had ever found his personal purpose as Sanjen continued to seek his own. So when the Grimwell bandits came for the small hamlet he had stopped at briefly and taken them all prisoner, he hadn't much cared beyond his own survival. And when they asked what he could do for them, he offered his services as a rat farmer rather than a minister.

To raise up rats he found so they could be sold for use in torture, food, sabotage or anything else they thought to use them for. That was what he could offer these ruthlessly immoral men. He asked only to be spared for his service: knowing it would be useless to ask for anything more and might instead earn him one payment of the steel variety to his thin neck. It turned his stomach that innocent creatures should be turned to such sinister purposes but he swallowed his revulsion and did what he could to treat the rats well.

And so his service to the Grimwell marauders began.

It wasn't such a terrible thing in truth. He was an average, unassuming man to most of them if a bit older than the rest at the age of three and forty. Sure, they would disparage him for taking care of the rat shit and feeding. He managed to convince himself it wasn't his fault that the others were hunted or taken to the river never to be seen again. He had only wanted to live. Another hour, another day, another minute. Whatever it took to continue serving the only beings he could truly trust: the Seven.

And what could he truly do against men such as them?

He was no good with a sword nor a shield. His eyes weren't good enough to be a bowman. And even when he had been young enough to do so, he had never been the sort of man to seek violence on others: even those who had done violence unto him. All he could do was pray to the seven faced god that the poor souls the Grimwells sent away or hunted would find peace in the afterlife they had been denied in life.

He knew most believed in the weirwoods and the Old Gods without faces but what did it truly matter in the face of death? Such were the thoughts that played through his mind during his limited captivity.

And then the black haired boy had annihilated the camp.

He had come tearing through it like a force of nature: fire and death and blood left in his wake. Sanjen had been asleep when it started, listening absently to the scratching of the rats. That was how he knew something was wrong. When they all started squeaking in a panicked pitch that he only ever had heard when they were stuck in the bucket that the Grimwells tied to someone's chest that wouldn't give them the answer or respect they wanted or felt they deserved. He'd registered the smoke before anything else came to mind: his nostrils filling with the stuff as his eyes shot open and he started automatically coughing, his body trying its' damnedest to eject the noxious stuff from his airways.

He'd gotten out of the tent only for an arrow to strike it and a moment later watch as it enflamed behind him. The rats squeaked and squeaked and scratched as if they could feel their death through the heat. Sanjen wanted to help them but couldn't after he started to go back and some of the burning fabric landed upon his shoes. As if the fire sought to consume everything, his shoes lit up just as quickly as the tent despite being somewhat damp from the recent sprinkling and melting of snow that had happened in their camp a few days ago.

Sanjen had panicked, yanking the boots off his feet without regard for his hands as the heat and the fire stung and burned at him. He'd managed to prevent any serious damage to his hands and feet despite some redness in his extremities that throbbed painfully whenever he flexed or twitched them. He'd lain there for only a moment before he scrambled backward, moving away from the tent as it collapsed and the rat's cacophony was drowned out by the crackling of the dancing fires now consuming their camp whole. As he got to his feet and tried to figure out where he could possibly go to be safe, he glimpsed the black haired boy.

He was about an average height, much younger than Sanjen's near fifty years he was willing to bet. But he saw him take the hand of Ramsay in his hands and speak something: setting him alight with some sort of sorcery.

Sanjen couldn't breathe for a moment as he sprinted to the outside of the camp, his mind racing as he tried to get the image of Ramsay's burning body looking up at the merciless face of the black haired boy.

The wandering man would've been the first to say Ramsay deserved punishment for the sins he had committed in life. But not like that. Not at the hands of a conjurer. Divine justice was meant to remain in the gods whether the gods were true or false. It was not meant to be wielded by the all too corruptible and easily misled hands of humans. Elsewise, people like him would not survive if others asked of the gods to take their life from them. And that was without the painful manner in which he had done it being taken into account…

That was no work of a man who would simply execute. That was the work of a man who provoked and indeed believed suffering to be necessary at the end of life in order to justify the death that would come. But it went against Sanjen's belief in what the meaning to death was. Death was meant to be an end to suffering in his mind. Upon the one hand there was life, the six faces of the seven who showed that there was so much more to living than there could be to any sort of afterlife. And upon the other hand there was death: that final journey to the welcoming arms of oblivion that all must make regardless of station or birth. To make a man suffer in that time before their final judgment was simply inhumane, a way of showing no understanding as to the sanctity of life.

As he caught his breath whilst the remains of the camp burned and the last few people fled, he missed seeing the dark haired boy escape and come toward him with one of the prisoners beside him. When he had at last recovered enough of his wits to see them sitting upon the ground to watch the destruction, he knew it was time for him to leave. He tried to sneak as quietly as he was able in his bare feet and his tattered robes.

He wasn't very successful.

In the darkness of the night and the dying of the bonfire the snapping of the branch he stepped upon was as loud as a clap of thunder across the darkened sky to his ears. He froze as the black haired boy stood and turned toward him so fast he almost missed it by blinking. His brown eyes looked into this ashen pools from a distance, mind racing as he wondered whether this was the end for him. But amazingly, the boy did not plan to kill him it seemed. Instead he simply told him to leave this place and never return.

He hadn't even finished his sentence before Sanjen was running as fast as his feet could carry him away from that accursed place: the echoes of screams both rodent and human echoing in his ears.

He wandered through the North, barely stopping to eat or to drink. He couldn't sleep: not when he knew the images that would wait just behind his eyes. Not when he wasn't even sure if the fire demon would be able to reach him within the realm of his own mind.

And a demon made flesh he had to be: for what righteous man would play with the most dangerous element of them all? The element that provided naught but destruction and death in its wake? Oh certainly dabblers might light a candle or warm a fire, but this…this was something else entirely. Something unnatural.

After several days of continuing to run and listening for any branch snap or crackling blaze behind him Sanjen wasn't sure whether he was dreaming as he walked or not. But he would not give up. Not until he was safely out of the accursed North that had brought such pain and misery to so many people. And with time he managed to succeed.

He didn't know for certain how much time had passed since he had left the Last Lake and come through the Neck in such a haze. He knew he should've by rights died from the creatures and cranogmen that infested the boggy swampland. But somehow he hadn't been hurt. He laughed a bit hysterically to himself as he thought of it. 'When lost or in doubt, consult the Seven for all your kingdom treking needs.'

A bit uncharitable toward the Seven truly. It seemed that despite being devout and pious, he was still but a human after all.

Eventually the landscape was more lush and fertile. This must be the Riverlands. He wondered whether he should know that because his mother had been from this part of the seven kingdoms before she went north with his father. But truly the only thing he could think to himself was that he hoped to find a Sept soon so that he could at last find ground that would feel safe, familiar, comforting.

It happened when he stumbled upon a crossroad village whose name he did not know. Whether it was near the Kingsroad or not, whether it was near a river or not, whether they even had a lord or not he didn't know. Sanjen only knew he had stepped through the door of the Sept and promptly collapsed onto the hard tile face first.

His dreams had been troubled: images of the Last Lake burning intermingling with visions of his father and mother burning. He knew he reached for them at one point only to find himself climbing a bell tower of some sort. He could hear that infernal burning sound: the fires of the black haired boy at his feet. He didn't know how he knew this but he did. And when he came to the empty top of the bell tower he looked over the landscape.

He couldn't tell whether this was a city, a town or untouched wilderness. All he knew was that it was all consumed in fire. He could hear screaming from inside the fire: their squeaky cries of fear and pain managing to lift all the way up to his bell tower. He looked to the smoke filled sky: no hint of the stars, sun or moon could be seen. Blackness above and unholy light below. He heard the door behind him burst open. He turned to see what had followed him up to witness this hell on earth.

It was the black haired boy.

He didn't know how he knew that. Perhaps it was the facial structure he saw in him. It certainly wasn't the hair which was gone. Or the eyes which were only pits which glowed the color of burning blood. And it couldn't have been the skin: for that was black as burned out wood with glowing red cracks running in patterns all along his body. Or perhaps he was simply connecting this…creature to the boy because it seemed the only connection he could make to this inhumanly human looking thing that stood before him.

The creature was before him in an instant with a devil's grin upon it's blackened and cracked lips. Its right arm impacted his chest with the force of a battering ram: preventing him from even crying out as he was shoved out of the tower and sent tumbling into the hellishly burning landscape below the tower.

The closer he got to the fire, the hotter it felt. His clothes were the first to catch aflame. Than it was his hair. And then his skin. And through it all, he was unable to stop watching as the creature lifted its arms and face to the blackened sky. It flared in a gigantic burst of fire that he couldn't look away from. It blacked the top of the tower instantly in addition to destroying the very top where he had once been. As the rubble collapsed downward and the burning spread down while his falling body came closer and closer to the fire below him Sanjen did the only thing he could.

He screamed. He screamed so loud, it jolted him awake.

He was in a bed stuffed upon straw. A humble bedding that was meant for utility more than comfort. He looked around wildly as his hair stuck stubbornly to his sweat soaked forehead, brown eyes unable to take in everything at once as it searched for the hell he remembered from his dreamscape.

He heard shuffling outside his door as he tried to stand from his bed and was struck by a spell of dizziness so intense he had to immediately sit down least he empty his already heaving stomach onto the floor.

"Ah! Seven be praised: you're awake!" An older voice said.

Sanjen looked up to see who it was. It was a man even older than himself, wrinkles around his blue eyes, mouth crinkled in a small smile of true thankfulness. He was a bit stooped in his age, the weight of years visible in the bending of his back and the veins beneath his skin that shone blue like a clear sky. But still he seemed satisfied to hold his simple cotton robes that signified he was the town's Septon.

"It is good for you to remain in the bed stranger. Your fever lasted several days. I was not certain my work alone could help you, so I prayed to all the Seven for any help they could lend me in aiding you." The older man said, making his way to Sanjen's bedside slowly. He held a bowl of some kind of broth in his hand.

"All the Seven?" Sanjen asked hoarsely, his scratchy voice grating as it emerged from his chapped lips.

The older man nodded.

"Even the Stranger." He confirmed. Sanjen was unsure what to make of that. The Stranger was the aspect of Death and the end of all things. The one face of the Seven there were almost no songs of for fear that speaking of it would draw the Stranger's gaze upon you. Surely he had to know that.

"What is your name?" The older man asked a few moments later, after Sanjen had taken several spoonfuls of the stew presented to him. The broth and the meat inside tasted of chicken he thought. And though there weren't more than a few bits of carrot in it too, it was a blessed relief to have true food in his gullet after so long of subsisting on whatever he could scrounge from the wild whilst he fled…

_'No,'_ Sanjen told himself sternly. _'I won't think of it again.'_

The older man smile dimmed a bit and his eyes seemed more melancholy as Sanjen remained silent.

"Well, that's fine." He said good-naturedly. "I suppose we'll get to know one another soon enough."

As Sanjen finished the stew and the Septon rose to leave, he asked a question.

"Septon?" He said aloud as he reached the door.

"Yes my child?" The Septon turned to answer, head slightly cocked to the right in curiosity.

"Do you believe the Seven have a purpose to all things?" He asked.

The Septon pondered Sanjen's question for a few moments before he nodded.

"I do child." He said. "From the greatest king to the lowliest animal, the Seven have a plan for them all. We simply must find what it is. And when we do, we follow their will."

Sanjen's eyes drifted to the ceiling as his mind's eye filled with the memories of the Last Lake and his fever dream that remained etched in his brain.

"Of course." He whispered softly as the Septon turned to go again. "Of course they do."

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Whew, this took longer than expected! But it was all thanks to you guys leaving your reviews and letting me know what you think that let me get it done and push through my instances of writer's block! The more you guys review, the more determined I am to finish what I've started! :D I know this seems like an OC but I'm kinda cheating with this one. Technically he is a named character in the books...he just hasn't had his actual name or background shown as of yet. A virtual cookie to anyone who suspectsknows who it might be! :)


	18. Arya II

Arya Stark had been a light sleeper by nature all her ten years of life.

This had been most thoroughly documented by her lady mother when as a new babe she had once managed to awaken her wet nurse **and **her mother a combined total of nine times in the course of a single night.

Then as she got older it was less her messing herself or suddenly becoming hungry than it was her jolting herself awake by moving too suddenly beneath her covers or her dreams getting too vivid for her to continue dreaming.

Robb always said her imagination was too active for her own good.

But she'd always thought it more a fun thing than any sort of hindrance. It gave her more to think about outside finding a handsome prince or pretty lord's son. Something Sansa and Jayne Poole seemed to talk about constantly even when there hadn't been any lords or ladies to Winterfell for months on end.

But lately, she'd been having deeper and deeper sleep that held stranger and yet oddly comforting dreams. She'd thought after her brother Jon left Winterfell that she'd be so lonely with no one to really call her own in Winterfell. She had been proven right in this unfortunate assumption. Robb and Theon considered themselves too grown for her company. Bran and Rickon considered her too rough, though Arya was personally sure that was more due to Bran not appreciating being shown up at anything boys were supposed to do by the sister closest to his own age.

The less that was said about her relationship with Sansa and Sansa's friend Jeyne the better.

She could pinpoint when her deeper dreams had first started. When Jon had first left, she did have some serious trouble being able to sleep. She missed her brother. She missed seeing him with Robb in the courtyard. She missed seeing him in the great hall when the family ate together. She missed how he would indulge her in practiced sword play with a stick when he could find time away from her lady mother's sharp eyes. So she'd tried to lose herself in her practices. Though she displayed more of her competency with sums than she previously had in her lessons, it was not enough to offset Septa Mordane's frustration with her limited ability in the more traditional arts of ladyship.

Her mother was not so inclined to scold her when she did get into trouble, perhaps because she could no longer use it as an excuse to chastise Jon for 'putting ideas' in her head. (In truth it had often been Jon who would try to get her to plan more of what she was doing so that if they did get into trouble, the provable evidence against them would be limited at best.) She did notice that some distance had developed between her mother and father if the stilted silences they tried to cover with talk of Winterfell's affairs was any indication.

But she knew they would never share anything of it with her unless it had first been shared with Maester Luwin, Rodrik Cassel and then Robb and Sansa. And she could certainly never rely on any of them telling her the truth about it even if she pestered with all her considerable creativity.

So one night several months after Jon had left Winterfell feeling a bit emptier, she had decided to pray like Sansa did. She had borrowed a candle from Septa Mordane: citing something she couldn't recall now about wanting to deepen her touch with the Seven. That sort of explanation usually worked on the well-meaning older woman.

When she had lit it and begun to silently pray whilst mother was taking the time to brush Sansa's hair, she didn't think until that moment just who she was going to pray to.

The Seven hadn't been the ones to intervene when she had been dying. Same for the Old Gods. (That and she didn't think praying to them with a candle borrowed from a Sept would really be the same as when father secluded himself away in the Godswood.) And Jon had never told anyone but father what power he had made an appeal with to ensure her health. So she decided that since she was here anyway, she may as well cast her prayers toward her wayward brother for whatever good they may be able to do.

_'I hope you can hear me Jon.'_ She said to herself. Despite an initial feeling of foolishness of kneeling in front of a candle that flickered absently from the wind that whistled through the stony corridors of Winterfell, she refused to give up. This was the most she could hope for since her brother was across the sea and not expected to be anywhere ravens could reach him for the foreseeable future.

She continued her prayer before she could make herself feel sad, clenching the fingers of her right hand tighter as the fist they made inside her overlaid left hand brought her back to attention of what she had been doing before.

_'Winterfell has continued on since you've been gone.'_ She thought, her forehead coming to rest on her hands as she leaned toward the flame to feel its warmth upon her skin. It reminded her of how heated Jon's flesh had been the night she snuck into his sickroom and sat by his side. He'd woken the next day, coming back to her like she'd asked him. But he'd left the morning after. Never before had she thought it was possible to avoid losing a treasured presence one way only to have it be lost another so soon after.

_'And yes, I'm still doing what I can to improve like we talked about before you left.'_ She reassured imaginary Jon, able to perfectly picture the uptick of his left eyebrow as he asked whether she was still trying to better her stickmanship so as to challenge him again and maybe get a real blade in the process.

_'But even so…I miss you Jon.'_ She said internally, her thoughts growing heavier at the mental admission. Her father and Robb had told her that Jon would be alright, that he would return one day. But it didn't ease the ache of his absence.

_'I wish you hadn't gone. I wish you'd stayed here.'_ She confessed, her eyes and fingers clenching tighter. The sound of mother and Sansa chatting as they comfortably talked of what had happened during the day filled the room for a time. Arya took a mental inhale and exhale before she continued. _'But…but I can't blame you for going.'_

That was perhaps the worst of it. Even in the face of his departing with no immediate idea of when or if he would return, she couldn't bring herself to hate him for leaving. Because he wasn't doing it to be selfish or follow his 'bastard nature' as she'd heard some of the older scullion maids mutter when they had both snuck down to the kitchens for snacks before. He was doing it for the Starks. The same as when he'd tried his hardest at all the lessons he'd been given: be they from Ser Rodrik, Maester Luwin or even their father on occasion.

Even in the face of this new and strange power he had unlocked, Jon's first loyalty and love was for their family. Arya barely noticed when her fingernails dug into her palm enough to draw the slightest trickle of blood.

'I can understand you leaving Jon. I won't lie and say I like it or wish it hadn't been otherwise. I can't tell you that, wherever you are right now. But I can do what I did when you were sick: tell you I miss you. And that you need to come back soon.' She opened her eyes: a smile on her face even as she unclasped her hands while shaking the small bits of blood that had gathered on her palm and her fingernails so mother wouldn't scold her and would perhaps wait another day to reprimand her for not taking care of her nails as was expected of a proper lady.

She clearly remembered the last thing she had thought as a prayer before her mother had told her to blow out the candle and come to her. She remembered that she had thought: _'I want to you back again Jon.'_ And she'd certainly meant it with all her heart.

That night was the first night she had the dreams.

They always began the same way. With her awakening among a field of shadows and lights. Sometimes it shifted into the shape of a city. Sometimes it became Winterfell. And yet other times it became a forest: lush and ripe for exploration. But there was always a constant presence to it. There was always Jon Snow.

When she had first seen him, Jon had been just as shocked to her see as if he hadn't been expecting her company. Which she had thought passing strange, considering that it was her dream they were in and so he should've expected to see her. But he was always glad of her presence after he got over his initial shock of it. What she enjoyed most of it was that dream Jon was like real Jon in the ways that mattered.

He still mussed her hair and called her little sister. He still had her demonstrate what she learned. Though she found it unfair that even in her dreams she couldn't manage to best him at stick fighting. And he always had a tale or a snatch of song to share. But when she was silent, he too was often silent: not prompting her to talk or relive the hardness of the day but simply allowing her to sit by the fire with him and enjoy his imaginary companionship. And through it all, she slept as peacefully as a moss covered stone. Oftentimes she wondered if it were possible for her to be speaking to her brother in her dreams and that she had managed to open a pathway to him through the candle. But she managed to dismiss that thought after a while.

She knew that he wasn't real though because as time went on, his appearance became stranger and distinctly less human.

One night she had started to notice that his pupils were becoming slitted like one of the lion lizards that Maester Luwin spoke of living in the southernmost swampy area of the North known as the Neck. He seemed surprised when she pointed that out to him. But when she insisted that it was so, he would only say that it must be his heritage showing through. He laughed when she replied that their father had only ever been a direwolf. She didn't see what was so funny about it, but they'd soon after played tag between the shadows and the lights and she promptly focused on catching him for once.

More time passed before she noticed that his fingernails were more like talons instead of nails: their color black as night and their edges sharp enough to rend some of the trees they sometimes found themselves among when the dreams took a more nature oriented landscape. She asked him why he had such sharp nails now. He told her that it was because he sharpened them as often as he could: to be ready for any predators who thought him easy prey.

"But why would you need talons for that?" She asked him when he told her that, her longer hair falling into her eyes even as he looked at her from the other side of the fire.

"Unless I intend to sleep with a dagger under my pillow, I need to be able to fight with my hands too Arya." He told her, the upturned corners of his lips expressing his happiness at seeing her again even as he absently let the fingers of his right hand make its way through the upper edge of the fire.

Arya thought about this and gave a sage nod of approval. She decided it was a very practical approach to take in the dream world where nightmares could often sneak up suddenly and without warning.

"Do you think you could teach me to do that?" She asked him, leaning back against the rock that was warmed by both her own body heat and the ambient heat of the fire she and her dreamscape Jon were sharing.

"When I return to Winterfell little sister." He answered easily, stretching backward with his hands straight out as if to try and realign his spine. He groaned as he did so, eyes temporarily closing as he managed to elicit one or two soft cracks from his shoulders that sounded like the logs burning merrily in the fire pit.

Arya sighed in response.

"Too bad." She said. Jon's eyebrow quirked in question. "If you were the real Jon saying that, I'd believe you. But you're just my dream, so you'll say whatever I want you to say."

Jon's eyebrow was joined by its' twin.

"Oh, you think I'll say what you wish simply because this is a dream?" He asked her.

"No, I think you'll say what I want you to say because this is my dream." She answered him. It was a very simple thing really. But dreams could prove such a silly thing really. She'd managed to find improvement in her ability to deal with her mother and her sister now that their attention was focused with a hawk-like intensity on her for being 'unladylike' thanks to her dream Jon's advice on letting their words wash over her and how best to practice in secret around Winterfell. It was truly helpful, but it also made her wistful and wonder when her real Jon would be returning home to be where he belonged again.

"Oh, this may be a dream Arya." He conceded even as she pointedly interrupted him with a "**My** dream" for emphasis. "But why on earth should that mean it isn't real?"

She laughed at the absurdity of his question and pointed to his eyes and his talons before looking at him in a silent query of if he needed more proof.

"All dreams have some roots in what we consider real Arya." He said in response, leaning closer to the fire. The light seemed to cast shadows upward on his face that made the hair on his head and closer to his eyes seem much darker than it was while showing a sharp contrast to just how much his eyes had changed. The pupil was now almost entirely slitted though the grey color remained the same as ever. It gave him a strange contrast between what he was and what her imagination conjured he might be after the fire magic she knew he had used to heal her.

"But you're still in my head. So you're not really Jon." She reasoned. Maester Luwin and Septa Mordane had been very clear on dreams being the wanderings of an idle body that didn't mean more than a child's wild imaginings in the grand scheme of things.

He leaned back, allowing his features to seem more human again as she answered him.

"As you say little sister." He conceded with a wider smile.

After that, he'd never tried to dissuade her of her knowledge as to what he was. And from there she thought it would be a simple matter to tell Jon about the strange dreams she'd had of him while he'd been gone.

But tonight was different. Tonight she was upon a ship, something that had never happened in all her nighttime imaginings with Jon.

Jon Snow was standing on the deck of the ship, only the light of the stars to illuminate his eyes as he looked idly out upon a blue grey sea that looked simultaneously endless and limited as it disappeared into the darkened horizon. There was no land to any side of them.

Jon looked at her with his peripheral vision, strange flashes of what appeared to be scales peeking out beneath the skin at the corner of his eyes.

"I wasn't expecting you here Arya." He said to her, smile absent.

"Why not? This is my dream." She told him, standing alongside him at the wooden railing that kept them from the watery depths beneath this simple wooden ship. It seemed a humble ship to Arya's eye, no flashy colored cloth for sails like she'd heard ships across the Narrow Sea were known to possess. No symbol upon the white windcatchers.

"Why are we on a ship?" She asked him, wondering why she was on a ship with Jon when she was more comfortable with the forest setting that could allow her to pretend they were in the Wolfwood that held Winterfell's Godswood.

"Because this is where I am." He told her. She didn't know what that was supposed to mean. How could dream Jon have an existence independent of her dreams? Did he even exist outside of them? He was a figment of her memories and thoughts on her brother. But on the other hand, she'd never had such a persistent set of dreams before. Or if she had she didn't remember them.

As she was about to ask him what he meant, she spotted storm clouds on the horizon and a bank of what seemed at first glance to be a dark fog. But when she looked closer, she realized it wasn't a fog bank. It was in fact smoke. And smoke that appeared to have sparks and visible heat emanating from it. When she saw that, her question changed to address the more immediate concerns before her.

"What is that?" She asked him, pointing into the distance behind the ship.

Jon appeared to jolt where he stood. As he did, the dreamscape changed. It became sharper, more defined. As though more details were being added where before there was a vagueness and a half blurry look to it that unfocused the eye if one tried to look at it too long. But with the change in the landscape came a reduction in the blackness and the smoke that she had seen before.

Instead there was now only featureless ocean as far as she could see, with choppier waves that seemed somewhat agitated. The caps of the waves never reached over the sides of the boat, but they definitively slapped against the hull like an insistent guest demanding another portion of a meal due to them. Arya looked around, uneasy at the suddenly less dreamlike quality of the environment.

With the strange shift had also come a change in Jon's appearance. Instead of the talons she had seen on his hands for some time now, his hands were now an ordinary humans with nails only slightly longer than could be healthy. Instead of scales, he had the paler skin she remembered of him with a great deal more facial and head hair than she had thought he would gain.

But still the slitted eyes remained.

Jon's eyes were fixed in the distance on the place where she had seen the smoking fog not moments before. He swore under his breath and started striding toward the pair of men she noticed at the stern of the boat.

"Jon? What's happening Jon?" She attempted to ask him. But now his eyes slid over her as though she wasn't there. He came within range of the men, pointing at the horizon behind them. In an urgent whisper, he spoke to them.

"We've got trouble coming up behind us Captain." He said, still not looking at Arya even out of the corner of his eyes.

A brown haired, brown eyed man looked at Jon sharply. The crow's feet surrounding his eyes scrunched in confusion.

"What're you talking about boy?" He asked, revealing somewhat reddened teeth that could only have been gained from chewing sourleaf for years on end. "There's nothing back there."

"I know you don't want to trust the word of a sellsword, but please." Jon asked, urgently gesturing behind them. "I'll be glad if I'm proven wrong, but I feel uneasy about simply waiting to find out whether these are the raiders I heard tell of in White Harbor."

Arya felt her heart drop into her stomach. What kind of dream was this?

As it turned out, not a good kind.

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><p>AN: Finally, it's out! My thanks to you guys for leaving your reviews, for favoriting and for following the story! Be sure to let me know what you think of this continued world-building exercise! :D


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